Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness is widely considered to be one of the great works of the English language. It is also, at first glance, one of the most depressing; the title seems to set the tone, and the subject matter is hardly cheerful. Yet readers who allow themselves to be taken in by these superficial characteristics miss a whole other level of meaning. Heart of Darkness is not intended to be a gloomy story; Joseph Conrad has instead written a black comedy about the very serious subject of imperialism in order to better convey his disgust with imperialistic activities. The pages of Conrad's novella are pervaded by absurd characters, humorous scenes, and--to the discerning reader--an overall sense of drollness. Readers should open their eyes to the comedy of Heart of Darkness, for it is worthy of being enjoyed and simply increases the greatness of this novella.
Black comedy, also called black humor, dark comedy, and other similar names, is "the juxtaposition . . . of morbid or absurd elements with comical or farcical elements, especially so as to produce a shocking or disturbing effect" ("Black humor"). Some famous examples of this include Catch-22, by Joseph Heller, Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., and Dr. Strangelove, a Stanley Kubrick film. The creators of all these works wish to make points about a morbid subject--in these cases, war--and choose to do so by creating absurd situations and peopling them with equally absurd characters who then proceed to partake in many absurd acts and say a plethora of absurd things. This absurdity combines with the underlying morbidity of the subject in order to impress more fully upon the reader the horrors of war. Heart of Darkness is similar in many respects to these great works and should therefore be included among their number.
First, Heart of Darkness is bursting with hilarious characters. Consider the Belgian Doctor, who measures the heads of his patients before they set out for Africa. This is a pointless endeavor on his part, since, as he himself admits, "'"Oh I never see them [when they come back] . . . and moreover, the changes take place inside, you know"'" (Conrad 17). The amusing futility of this man's habit sets the stage for the madness to follow.
It is in Africa that the comic cavalcade of characters truly begins to march. Conrad supplies his readers with such varied personages as the well-groomed Accountant, the lazy Fat Man, the insecure Manager, the ambitious Brickmaker, the unscrupulous Uncle, the greedy Pilgrims, and the cheerful Russian. All of these figures are well-drawn caricatures, possessing a few traits that have been exaggerated to emphasize the absurdity of the situation. For instance, the Accountant is as impeccably attired as he would be in London, and ludicrously attentive to his work, to boot. When an ill agent is brought to the station, he merely complains: "'"The groans of this sick person . . . distract my attention"'" (Conrad 30). The Accountant is so exaggeratedly single-minded that he cannot avoid being laughable, even in his pompous cruelty. The Company men produce a similar effect on the reader; their attempts to maintain a veneer of civilization while taking full advantage of the lawlessness of the region are nothing short of comical, despite--and perhaps even because of--their contemptibility.
The Russian, on the other hand, is funny not because of any duplicity, but because he is so eagerly devoted to Kurtz, an agent who seems hardly worthy of such adoration. Marlow, who is telling the story, describes one example of this devotion: "'"It isn't what you think," he cried, almost passionately. "It was in general. He made me see things--things"'" (Conrad 99). Marlow finds this and other such outbursts to be somewhat amusing, and this humor is passed on to the reader. Many human characteristics, both benign and despicable, can be made comical if approached in the right manner, and Conrad has accomplished this feat with his depiction of both the Russian and the Company men.
That the Company men and the Russian are funny is no great discovery. Marlow, Kurtz, the Intended, and the Wife, on the other hand, do not seem to be especially comedic characters--although they, too, have their humorous moments--but they are not intended to be, and in fact should not be. If all the characters sent the reader into gales of laughter, the humor would soon grow dull and thus less powerful. These four characters therefore serve, for the most part, as foils for the others, emphasizing the absurdity of the Company men's behaviors. Marlow serves in this capacity especially well as the teller of his story. His reactions and descriptions increase the comic effect of everything that happens, since he himself finds much that occurs to be rather droll. The other three are primarily tragic characters whose depressing natures are necessary to add both substance to the story and relief from the madcap antics of the others. However, these three in no way detract from the overall humor of the novella, but instead make it more meaningful.
In addition to containing many comical characters, the pages of Heart of Darkness are liberally strewn with humorous situations. These situations are more than comedic interludes; they fit together to demonstrate the ridiculousness, and ultimately, the wrongness, of imperialism in Africa. For example, there is Marlow's voyage to the Central Station with the Fat Man and his entourage. The Fat Man becomes ill and has to be carried in a hammock. As Marlow recalls, "'The next morning I started the hammock off in front all right. An hour afterwards I came upon the whole concern wrecked in a bush--man, hammock, groans, blankets, horrors. The heavy pole had skinned his poor nose'" (Conrad 33). While Marlow's phrasing and the utter deservedness of the Fat Man's injury are funny, the best--and most telling--part of this scene is the Fat Man's reaction: "'He was very anxious for me to kill somebody, but there wasn't the shadow of a carrier near'" (Conrad 33). That the Fat Man would expect to have someone shot simply for skinning his nose and bruising his dignity shows that his superiority complex--and that of imperialists in general--is truly ludicrous and disgusting.
Then there is the rivet sequence. On reaching the Central Station, Marlow discovers that his steamboat has sunk. He sets to work repairing it, but he needs rivets to finish the job. One night, sick of having to wait for rivets, he is talking to the Manager's spy and letter-writer, the Brickmaker. "'I said . . . what I wanted was a certain quantity of rivets . . . Now letters went down to the coast every week. . . . "My dear sir," he cried, "I write from dictation." I demanded rivets. . . . He changed his manner; became very cold, and suddenly began to talk about a hippopotamus . . .'" (Conrad 48). Soon afterwards, Marlow and his friend the Boiler-Maker cut wild capers on the deck of the steamboat because they have randomly decided that the rivets will arrive in three weeks' time. Three weeks pass, and there are no rivets, so Marlow decides to "'let things slide'" (Conrad 53). This sequence humorously demonstrates the imperialists' bureaucratic ineptitude and unwillingness to fix any problem that does not involve immediate gratification, which in turn highlights their overall greed.
Finally, there is the ambush scene. Marlow is steaming up the river with the Manager of the
Central Station, some Pilgrims, and about thirty Cannibals. One morning they are fog-bound when
they suddenly hear a number of other Cannibals screaming.
[The noise] culminated in a hurried outbreak
of almost intolerably excessive shrieking, which stopped short, leaving us
stiffened in a variety of silly attitudes,
and obstinately listening to the nearly as appalling and excessive silence. "Good
God! What is the meaning--" stammered at my
elbow one of the pilgrims, a little fat man, with sandy hair and red
whiskers, who wore sidespring boots, and pink
pajamas tucked into his socks. (Conrad 70)
The rest of the scene develops in this manner, with the Pilgrims generally acting like buffoons
and Marlow making sly remarks throughout. This scene, perhaps better than any, illustrates just
how out of place the Pilgrims, and by extension, imperialists in general, are in Africa; they
are greedy, cowardly men who refuse to adapt to the land around them, react badly in crises, and
brag when some loud noise sends the natives running. These men have no right to be in Africa,
and Conrad makes this fact clear to his readers with his use of this and other comical
situations.
While it is clear that Heart of Darkness abounds with absurd characters and situations, these alone do not make it a comedy; many tragedies, notably those by Shakespeare, contain scenes of slapstick humor that simply exist to relieve the overwhelming gloom. What makes Heart of Darkness a comedy is the way in which Marlow relates his story. As mentioned before, he finds a certain amount of humor in nearly everything that befalls him during his journey. Thus, when he tells his crewmates about it, he often takes the tone of one telling some dry or ironical jest. Even the memory of a French man-of-war shooting into the bushes along the African coast is an insane joke: "'There was a touch of insanity in the proceeding, a sense of lugubrious drollery in the sight; and it was not dissipated by somebody on assuring me earnestly there was a camp of natives . . . hidden out of sight somewhere'" (Conrad 21). Perhaps, in the final analysis, Heart of Darkness can be compared to Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece Dr. Strangelove. Dr. Strangelove is the story of the insane actions of an American general that end in a nuclear holocaust. There are serious scenes, and the end is depressing, but Dr. Strangelove is still hailed as a great comedy, simply because it comes off by and large as an intelligent joke. Heart of Darkness should be received with the same perceptive level of understanding.
Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness has been considered a depressing read for far too long. While its primary subject, imperialism, is undeniably a very serious one, Heart of Darkness nevertheless manages to maintain an air of levity that helps to drive Conrad's negative view of imperialism home. First, it contains a number of highly entertaining characters. Second, it is full of comical episodes that fit together to demonstrate the absurdity of the overall situation. Finally, and most importantly, there is a sense of drollery that pervades the story; everything that happens is part of one big cosmic joke, much as in Dr. Strangelove. Readers should not grumble at the apparent dismalness of Heart of Darkness, but should instead rejoice at the existence of Conrad's unusual comedy.
October '01
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