Heart of Darkness

I was discussing Heart of Darkness today, specifically the second section.  One of the ideas we were taken with was the idea of the half-caste employee of Kurtz and Kurtz's role as a half-caste himself, in a sense, half English and half French with all of the attendant conflict in culture and religion that that would entail to a 19th century reader.  This led to a discussion of historical and literary half-castes, Hitler and Voldemort in particular. 

I thought it was so interesting that this idea of otherness could create such an inner conflict.  We always think of the other and prejudice as exterior effects, but it seems to be a truth of contemporary literature that the conflict is internalized, to the great detriment of the one who experiences that feeling.  His own sense of internal conflict therefore is externalized and results in the victimization of the side of himself that he sees as alien or blameworthy.

Perhaps it is that sense of self-alienation in Conrad that makes him so contradictory and makes a coherent reading of him so difficult.  Achebe sees him as a racist while Clifford sees him as an anthropologist.  Can they both be right?  I would argue that they can, because Conrad is, like many of our greatest writers, such a contrarian and such a conundrum, so complex and so incapable of definition.  Eliot is similar--a man of depth and faith and startling erudition who abandoned his wife and espoused pro-Nazi views, a god as a poet and a devil as a person. 

I always say that great works of literature tell you far more about yourself than about the characters in the story.  It is what you bring to the story and to your reading of it that matters.  This is always my experience with Heart of Darkness.  It is so hard to read because it is so ineffable, resists answers, resists moralizing.  However, it is that complexity that makes it worth reading again and again.