The purpose of this essay is to explore the issues of abandonment in Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness. This theme will be explored not only through geographical abandonment but through the female characters in the novel for both the narrator and Kurtz. Thus, love will be a major theme throughout the paper as it is received, unrequited and abandoned. In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the audience is presented with the character Marlow whose hope overwhelms his morality in the search for Mr. Kurtz.
Marlow appears to be a Buddha type image (at least the early Buddha, Siddhartha) in that he is searching for hope through Mr. Kurtz. Thus, Marlow is a character whose hope is tied up with a sense of adventure and courage mixed with either ignorance or unawareness. Marlow seems to have created an acceptance of people and in return expects them to show the same regard of acceptance in silence, which is an abandonment of discernment in dealing with human relations and exposes Marlow as being blind to his own surroundings; thus a further abandonment of sight in a metaphoric sense.
The company seems to think Marlow’s stories are elusive to a point because, “…to hear about one of Marlow’s inconclusive experiences. ” (pg 10). The company appears to discourage his story telling because of his disregard to the audiences wants. At the beginning of his journey into Africa, Marlow appears to be the whimsical sailor. An insightful sailor with thought patterns which reveal his character, “Watching a coast as it slips by the ship is like thinking about an enigma” (pg 19). Marlow presents himself to be a truth teller. Being always ‘appalled’ by a lie.
Marlow becomes obsessed with the idea of Mr. Kurtz. Only the want of a conversation with him led Marlow on his journey, thus revealing Marlow’s abandonment of self in his former society in chasing after an idealized notion of man (Mr. Kurtz). Marlow associated himself with Kurtz by becoming an outcaste in the eyes of the managers and the dark of his mindset comes out, “…but it was something to have at least a choice of nightmares. ” (pg 105). Then coming to base with reality when meeting Kurtz’s Intended, Marlow says that, “His end … was in every way worthy of his life” (pg 130). Following into Mr.
Kurtz’s character, it is discovered that he is not fully developed, especially in regards to hope which leads to a type of societal abandonment. He is described as a misfit (a type of pariah which further emphasizes the point of abandonment) showing everybody up. The ivory king so to speak. An elusive devil with a charmed life. Referred to as ‘that man’. A genius of a man not forgotten only because of outrageous speeches and stunts, not for any significant contribution to humanity, nor for his character development or change towards hope. Kurtz is a hard man to please and only a friend when he was in the whim of being a friends.
Perhaps the darkness drove Kurtz crazy and thus the audience is forces to recognize how his lack of hope twisted his character development, “…it had whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till he took counsel with his great solitude-…(whisper) echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core” (pg 98). Kurtz then was the abyss through which hope was abandoned. He sucked away ideas, morality, self-preservation of an idea and the act of being a taking of hope filled Kurtz because he had no other thoughts of his own.
Solitude does strange things to a man as is witnessed by Kurtz’s character. In fact the feeling of abandonment, or lack of hope can very simply be seen in the treatment of the females in the novel. Mr. Kurtz’s character finds a reflection of himself in his female counterpart and how he treats that counterpart. There are only three somewhat minor female characters in Heart of Darkness: Marlow’s aunt, Kurtz’s mistress, and Kurtz’s “Intended. ” Marlow mentions these female characters in order to give the literal aspect of his tale more substance.
When Marlow reaches the Inner Station, he jumps ahead and tells a little about The Intended, Kurtz’s fiancee (to say “I do” when he returned). The Intended woman does not appear until the very end of the story, in which Marlow visits her and lies to her about Kurtz’s dying words. The last female character, Kurtz’s African mistress, was presented near the end of the novel. Her first appearance took place in the scene with Marlow talking to the Russian. She appears later when Marlow and Kurtz depart on the steamboat. After Marlow blows the whistle, she stretches her arms out towards the steamer, and that was the last time she appears.
The limited depiction of female characters in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and the way in which the three female characters are referred to by Marlow reflect Marlow’s view of women as inferior. Marlow’s opinion of women manifests the typical 19th century views of women. Marlow’s hope and Kurtz’s hope was desperation out of the thing they could not own, a woman’s love. Thus, the novel focuses abandonment on geography, society, and love.
The theme of hope is locked into the characters Marlow and Mr. Kurtz but it is with this theme of abandonment or lack of hope and love which propels the novel forward.
Work Cited Conrad, J.Heart of Darkness. Bentley Pub, New York. 2002. DeBona, Guerric. Into Africa: Orson Welles and “Heart of Darkness”. Cinema Journal, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Spring, 1994), pp. 16-34. Lee, A. Idealism in Heart of Darkness. 2001.
Online. Retrieved 3 November 2007. < http://amis_lee. tripod. com/fallingtree/hod. html> McClintock, Anne. “Unspeakable Secrets”: The Ideology of Landscape in Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”. The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Spring, 1984), pp. 38-53. Watt, Ian. Marlow, Henry James, and “Heart of Darkness”. Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 33, No. 2 (Sep. , 1978), pp. 159-174.