Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies

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1 Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies ISSN: (Online) (Print) Impact Factor: Vol.4, Issue 5, April 2016 Heart of Darkness: Joseph Conrad and His Deconstructive Discourse Sambit Panigrahi Lecturer in English, Ravenshaw University, Cuttack Abstract : Chinua Achebe s famous essay An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad s Heart of Darkness published way back in 1978 poses a strong attack on Joseph Conrad. Achebe s vantage point regarding his categorical attack on Conrad is based on the premise that Conrad possessed a thoroughly biased attitude towards the Africans whom he considered to be uncivilized and inferior compared to the Europeans for which he was termed as a bloody racist by the former, a term which however was modified later as thoroughgoing racist. According to Achebe, Conrad not only denigrated the African people but also the African land. The present article however contests Achebe s notion and using a deconstructive analysis of Conrad s ambiguous narrative and language, intends to establish the fact that Conrad is not an author who can be subject to such unidirectional and judgmental critical comment, rather is one whose writing is full of ambiguity, dual and oblique implications that defy any single meaning. Based on these precepts this article argues that the text, read closely, gives an impression that there are enough places in it where Conrad in fact intends to criticize the Europeans rather that denigrating the Africans and the paper intends to claim that Achebe, while posing a frontal attack on Conrad, has mostly missed the ambiguously suggestive undertones of Conrad s narrative. Key Words: Colonialism, deconstruction, polysemy, poststructuralism Joseph Conrad s illustrious novel Heart of Darkness has been subject to endless discussions, debates and critical re-evaluations over years and generations. Needless to say, the text, for its inherently ambiguous nature, has offered a multiplicity of interpretations by a multiplicity of interpretive communities and has thus created a timeless appeal for itself. Replete with a characteristic duplicity of language, thought and perception, the text is stubbornly self-elusive and inherently ambiguous. Critics in the past, notably, Chinua Achebe, have mostly provided a unidirectional interpretation to the text, thereby consciously or unconsciously, undermining and negating other possible interpretations. However, the poststructuralist approach recognizes Conrad s narrative in the light of plurisignation, to use a typical poststructural terminology which suggests towards a text s elicitation of multiple meanings in place of a single meaning. Accordingly, the narrative propels the reader towards the welter of undercidable possibilities towards an intellectual deadlock or aporia, again to use a fashionable Derridean coinage. Particularly, the text intends to reinforce the fact that Conrad, above all, has attempted to unravel the corrupt Eurocentric mind that perceives the Africans as a degenerate race. And Conrad finally emerges more as an unbiased racialist rather than a prejudiced racist that writers like Achebe conceive him to be. Chinua Achebe s famous essay, An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad s Heart of Darkness identifies Conrad as a bloody (modified later as thoroughgoing) racist. The narrative technique of Conrad turns out to be Achebe s vantage point in a scenario where an anguished Achebe finds his much-debated African discourse thoroughly biased, Eurocentric and discriminatory. But a careful reading of the text would show nevertheless that it is replete with a plethora of contrasting elements which facilitate a typical poststructural deconstruction of this polemical Achebian criticism of Conrad. By making a deconstructive study of the text, this article explores the self effecting persona of Conrad s narrative and the multidimensional paradigm it provides. Achebe s fierce and telling attack is on Conrad s vulnerable moral propriety. Conrad s personal letters, instead, divulge his intense moral sensibility refuting the legitimacy of Achebe s allegations. About the validation of the colonizing mission, Conrad writes, sarcastically, in a letter to Roger Casement: There can be no doubt that the presentation of the commercial policy and the administrative methods of the Congo state are absolutely true. It is a most brazen breach of faith to Europe. It is in every aspect an enormous and atrocious lie in action (Karl and Davies, 95). Conrad s crafty interplay between truth and falsity is aimed at unraveling the hypocritical nature of the colonizers. The truth projected by the colonizers is in actuality, a blatant lie. In the words of Atkinson: Heart of Darkness acknowledges the complexities of the imperial project of human imperfections, and the consequent dangers of being beyond the reins of civilized life (390). The distinction between the concepts of racism and racialism (211) introduced by David Theo Goldberg throws new lights on this issue. Available online at 259

2 Racialism, in his definition is the naturally given disparity between races devoid of any self-made prejudice, whereas racism is the same, but is coupled with bigotry and chauvinism. The textual evidences, as illustrated in the following paragraphs, provide ample scope for considering Conrad a racialist and problematize the concept of racism associated with him. The painting by Kurtz at the central station significantly elucidates the Janus-faced colonizing mission. Marlow observes: Then I noticed a small sketch in oils, on a panel, representing a woman, draped and blindfolded, carrying a lighted torch. The background was somber almost black. The movement of the woman was stately, and the effect of the torchlight on the face was sinister (Conrad, 28). The spuriousness of the colonizing mission is reflected through the astute glance of the draped and blindfolded woman. The lighted torch is a vainly glittering showpiece to validate the authenticity of the colonial enterprise as being noting but a civilizing mission presumptuous enough to be questioned. However, the dark and somber background, contradictorily, is emblematic of the dark heart of Africa that remains unlighted, despite the so- called civilizing venture. In the brightness of the lighted torch, there is the darkness concealed indicating the venomous desire for exploitation. Thus light, instead of being emblematic of luminosity, symbolizes the falsity of the mission. Achebe s reiterated claim about Conrad s idiosyncratic use of binary oppositions such as white/black, superior/inferior, civilized /uncivilized to denigrate the Africans in the novel demands deeper appreciation. A Derridean deconstructive reading in this context reveals Conrad s covert dismantling of those binary oppositions by subtle altering of the positioning of the Europeans and the Africans. The best instance can be located when in the boat, the Africans display unprecedented restraint despite their inherent cannibalism and the Europeans, despite their sophisticated façade, behave barbarously by tying the hands of the Africans. Marlow s tacit analogy between the Africans and the Europeans is interesting to note: It was unearthly, and the men were No., they were not inhuman but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity like yours the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself that there was in you just the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspicion of there being a meaning in it which you --you so remote from the night of first ages could comprehend (Conrad 42). The meaning that Marlow undercuts is paradoxical and imbued with cloaked implications. In Marlow s words, the inhabitants of the unearthly place are primitive and monstrous. But with an abrupt twist to his narrative, Marlow suddenly realizes that he cannibals are not inhuman and that he is thrilled to get a glimpse of the enormous humanity and prudence brimming out of the black, horrid faces of the native Africans. Black, symbolic of the evil and the sinister, ironically, represents here the brighter virtues of humanity and endurance. The abrupt narrative twist, so typical of Conrad s phenomenal artistry, is the object d art of this arcane turnaround in meaning. Marlow s detection of the faintest trace of the terrible frankness of that noise (Conrad 42) in the Europeans situates them in the position of the Africans. Beneath the white skin and untainted souls of the Europeans, there is a tinge of naked primitivism that atavistic aggression they abhorred so much in the Africans. Interestingly, Achebe too uses this particular incidence to point out Conrad s characteristic way of associating black with the Africans. Yet, he overlooks the intended metaphysical insinuations that these black images carry in the novel. In fact, a deconstruction of Achebe s arguments would reveal that the black color and imagery associated with the Africans are actually externalized projections of the dark, exploitative desire brooding over the inner psychological realm of the Europeans. Africa and the Africans are Conrad s literary artifacts through which he reflects the despicable European craving for possession. The intention, unreservedly, is not to denigrate the Africans, but rather to expose the Europeans. From a post-structural perspective, Achebe completely resorts to one slant of the argument, thereby, ignoring the other possible meanings and significations of Conrad s narration. Christopher Miller makes a remarkably fascinating observation in this context: It is for this reason that Heart of Darkness elicits such ambivalence among readers now a days; it is neither colonialist enough to be damnable nor ironic enough to be completely untainted by Colonialist bias. The net effect is a subversion of African discourse from within (88). Tzvetan Todorov observes the dangers of the formation of a particular judgment:. The possibility of passing judgment on their truth value is tantamount to amputating one of their essential dimensions (161). Conrad s narrative pattern, thus, has the semblance of a palimpsest imbued with multiple layers of meanings and significations. There is why adhering to one particular level of meaning and signifying the text accordingly can be thoroughly restrictive. Conrad s unparalleled artistry in constructing binary oppositions and subtly Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 4(5) April,

3 dismantling them can also be seen through his brilliant display of the interplay of color symbolism, particularly that of white and black. Marlow describes Kurtz s horror-stricken face in his dying moments in the following words: I saw on the ivory face the expression of somber pride, of ruthless power of craven terror of an intense and hopeless despair (84). The transference of this brightness of ivory to the face of Kurtz exemplifies an aura of affluence blended with a sense of invincible pride and power. Yet, by prefixing the words sombre and ruthless before pride and power respectively, Conrad suggests the darker implications of the whiteness of ivory and its adverse, blackening effect on the face of Kurtz leading towards a feeling of craven terror and an intense of hopeless despair that the later develops in his dying moments. The white thus becomes abominably dark and somber. The contrast between the two women, Kurtz s white fiancée and his black mistress, is maneuvered, in Achebe s observation, on the platform of language discrimination one sophisticated, and the other, deprived in a scenario where the European language is found to be more damaging and distrustful than the inconceivable African dialect. One can see that it is the power of Marlow s deceitful language that places Kurtz s white fiancée in eternal darkness making her live under the shadow of a false conviction in a scenario where language wraps truth beneath the cloak of its fabrication. The black mistress, though deprived of the sophistications of the European language, still remains the dumb witness of Kurtz s actuality and at least lives a life of conviction. In a sense, she is better positioned than the white fiancée for whom truth is pathetically denied. The black woman may be deprived of language, but is not deprived of truth while language itself robs the other of truth. The constructed notion of the European language being superior and the other being inferior thus undergoes a Derridean rupture (278) at this juncture. This baffling duplicity of Conrad s language, as Cedric Watts succinctly puts it, can be both truth-revealing or truth concealing (126). Further, the contrast that Achebe shows between the river Congo and the river Thames aids in subverting his own arguments. This can be done by exploring the possibility of reaching at a level of meaning, diametrically opposite to the meaning intended by him. First, to quote from Achebe: Heart of Darkness projects the image of Africa as the other world, the antithesis of Europe and therefore of civilization The book opens on the river Thames, tranquil, resting, peacefully at the decline of day after ages of good service done to the rest of that peopled its banks. But the actual story will take place on the River Congo, the very antithesis of Thames. The River Congo is quite decidedly not a River Emeritus. It has rendered on service and enjoys no old-age pension. We are told that Going up the river was like travelling back to the earliest beginnings of the world. Is Conrad saying then that these two rivers are very different, one good, and the other bad Yes.(2). Conrad undeniably makes a distinction between the two rivers. Thames appears tranquil containing within the glorious reminiscences of the splendor of European History. Moreover, it possesses the dreams of man, the seed of commonwealths, but ironically also the germs of empires (Conrad 3). Conrad indeed portrays the virtues of River Thames, but not without invoking its adulteration with the filth of imperialism in the form of the germs of empires, thereby subverting the apparent goodness of the river through this construed image. Congo, nonetheless, is peaceful, but mysterious, drawing the navigators into the unfathomable bottom of its infinite riddle. Marlow s observation that.. this stillness of life did not in the least resemble a peace (39) however places the river Congo a step behind River Thames. It should be noted that Marlow instantly realizes that the river is loaded with overwhelming realities and more importantly, is blessed with the inner truth (Conrad 40). In addition, Marlow confronts and unravels reality only in course of his voyage through the river Congo. The river achieves the magnitude of a master teacher for a devoted disciple like Marlow and symbolically, becomes a mirror in which the Europeans see the reflection of their own frailties. Hence, with the superficial semblance of badness that is thrust upon itself by the colonisers, there lies hidden an abundance of virtue and knowledge in its inmost recesses. In Achebe s terms, Africa is a metaphysical battlefield for Conrad devoid of all recognizable humanity (7). Interestingly enough, this metaphysical battlefield becomes the true centre of recognizable humanity and completely exposes the barbarous inhumanity hidden beneath the dubious moral fabric of the so called civilizing values of the European interlopers. It subsequently ends to a complete decentering of the false values of Eurocentrism and the metaphysical battlefield of Africa becomes the perfect setting for this decentering. In a sense, Europe rather becomes the other world and antithesis to humanity. Further, the Eurocentric concept of time and temporality is duly subverted here. The Europeans find themselves posited in the earliest beginnings of the world (Conrad 39) and in the night of first ages (Conrad 41-2) leading to the realization of their inherent primitivism. The Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 4(5) April,

4 very concept of their being modern is seriously problematized by the discovery of this atavistic temporality in which the Europeans find themselves posited. Achebe Argues that Conrad s image of Africa is not his own; it is rather the product of the western imagination (10). It is true that Conrad s beliefs and thoughts are obviously formulated by Eurocentric practices that enveloped him; however, it must not be forgotten that his prolonged voyages into the wilderness of Congo brought him into a frontal confrontation with the brazenly false and slippery nature of the European constructs African savagery. His progress through darkness is a progress from the darkness of false belief to the light of truth. It is a metaphysical voyage towards a conviction of self that ironically springs from the discovery of the immense darkness hidden beneath the false sophistication of the European self. Europe, in a sense, is replaced by Africa and re-presented by Marlowe through the image of Africa. Achebe, evidently, sees the effect of western imagination, but fails to envision its counter effect; he apparently sees the construct but fails to observe its deconstruction which dismantles the idea of charity and service that the Europeans associated with themselves. In a way, Achebe, instead of dehumanizing and denigrating the land of Africa in fact denigrates and exposes the Europeans and does justice to the land of Africa as Ian Watt asserts that within the limits of the story as a whole he [Conrad] does justice even to the land (94). Throughout the novel, Conrad operates through irony, paradox,and duplicitous language and thought, which in Brian Spittle s views, contributes to the apparent inconclusiveness of the story (30). This inconclusiveness consequently leads to a state of aporia or an intellectual deadlock where the reader is not table to arrive at any fixed and determinate meaning of the text. Camille R La Bossiere makes an illuminating observation regarding the fragmentation of the Conradian protagonist into multiple images concomitant with the fragmentation of meaning of the text into a surfeit of undecidable possibilities. He comments: It is only when they are immersed in the infinite, in which multiple perspectives coincide, that they are enlightened Afloat without bearings in a boundless mirror, they come to see the multiple contradictions within themselves. They are granted a vision of themselves in a new light from a different angle of vision. Their enlightenment, as has been observed above, is often prefaced by a reversal of optical perspective (9607). This fragmentation has close resemblance with the structure, theme and meaning of the text. The structure is convoluted, theme is inconclusive and the meaning is polysemous, keeping in tune with the multifarious and variegated experiences of the narrator, ending up in the stern realization of the multiple fragmentations of the human self. Its meaning persistently differs as well as defers losing its coherence into a welter of ambiguous possibilities. Conrad s narrative, from this perspective undergoes a postmodern narrative turn as critic Brian Mc Hale remarks: The narrative turn would seem to be one of the contemporary responses to the loss of metaphysical grounding or foundations for our theorizing. We are no longer confident that we can build intellectual structures upward from firm epistemological and ontological foundations (4). Conrad s narrative, therefore, leaves its critics with shaky intellectual positions arising out of epistemological and onto logical insecurities that it categorically exudes. The paradoxical expressions in the novel reverse the meaning and order of things; the white becomes black and the black becomes white. Marlow s telling statement, But darkness was here yesterday (Conrad 4) reminds us that Britain would once have seemed a land of savagery and wilderness to the Roman colonizers as Africa presently seems to the Europeans. By calling the Europeans savage and barbaric, Conrad reverses the natural order of the hierarchy between Europe and Africa and creates deliberately intended paradoxical situations that subverts the very notion of Eurocentrism as Cedric Watts fittingly comments: Repeatedly images prove paradoxical. The customary associations of white and black, of light and dark, are variously exploited and subverted (47). The novel concludes with Marlow s famous lie to the intended that is remembered as an insignia of Marlow s hypocrisy; but paradoxically, this lie leads to the realization of the most bitter, pessimistic and existential reality of life. Marlow may be condemned for his hypocrisy; but his lie was inevitable for the survival for the intended. Like truth, lie is an inevitable facet of life and can be more indispensable in a moment of crisis. It can replace truth in terms of its value and significance. The boundary between truth and lie gets blurred and at times, lie supersedes truth in terms of hierarchy and superiority. Ironical, however, is that this vital reality of life is realized only through a blatant lie. In this manner, Heart of Darkness has become notoriously unintelligible for the duplicity in language as well as thought and perception. This duplicity or double vision, as Daphna Erdinast Vulcan would have it, patently takes its origin from man s dilemmatic self positioning with respect to his own existence and the continuously shifting quality of his mind (56). Conrad s artistic duplicity, in Jacques Darras s avowed position, is Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 4(5) April,

5 marked by a secret determination to surpass reality imperceptibly in his inflection, to carry his moderate opposition to the very heart of language.(6) In the final analysis, Conrad s Heart of Darkness is a voyage into the inmost alcove of human psyche that unravels the deep sense of uncertainty and enigma prevailing out there. Conrad s concern for the loss of faith and fidelity in the modern man resulting from the utter despair and delusion prevailing in a morally bankrupt world coupled with man s inexplicable, existentialistic predicament is articulated in the novel. Africa is neither a deplorable place, nor are the Africans a degenerate race; it is rather the corrupt Europeran mind that associates an aura of degeneracy with them and to unravels it is Conrad s whole endeavor. The very idea of Europe as the centre of knowledge and civilization is damaged when the Europeans find themselves lacking it enormously, being exposed to the darker facets of Nature as well as their nature. Ultimately, the text demands a serious exploration a thorough and unbiased investigation for the discerning reader who is keen on locating the real heart that lies in the epicenter of darkness. Works Cited Achebe, Chinua. An image of Africa : Racism in Conrad s Hear of Darkness < ncsu.edu/wyrick/debclass /achcon.htm> Atkinson William. Bound in Blackwood s ; The imperialism of Heart of Darkness in its Immediate Context. Twentieth Century Literature 50.3 (2004): Print. Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Bombay: Orient Longman, Print. Dareras, Jacques. Joseph Conrad and the West: Signs of Empire. Trans. Anne Luyat and Jacques Darras. London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., Print. Derrida, Jaques. Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse fo Human Sciences. Writing and Difference. Trans. Alan Bass. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Erdinast Vulcan, Daphna. Some Millennial Footnotes on Heart of Darkness. Conrad in the Twentieth Century : Contemporary Approaches and Perspectives. Eds. Carola Kaplan, Peter Lancelot Mallios and Andrea White. New York: Routledge, Print. Goldberg, David Theo. The Ends of Race. Postcolonial Studies 7.3 (2004): Print. Karl, Frederick R. and Laurence Davies. Eds. The Collected Letters of Joseph Conrad. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Print. La Bossiere, Camille R. Joseph Conrad and the Science of Unknowing. Canada: York Press, Print. MacHale, Brain. Introducing Constructing. Constructing Postmodernism. Routledge, London, Print. Miller, Christopher L. The Discoursing Heart : Conrad s Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad, (Ed.) Elaine Jordan, Houndmills, Macmillan Press Lted., Print. Spittles, Brian. Heart of Darkness. How to Study a Joseph Conrad Novel. Houndmills: Macmillan Press ltd., Print Todorov, Tzvetan. A Dialogic Criticism. Literature and its Theorists: A Personal View of Twentieth Century criticism. Trans. Catherine Porter. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Print. Watts, Cedric. The Art of Conrad. A Preface to Conrad. London: Longman, Print Watts, Cedric. Heart of Darkness. The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad. Ed. J H Stape. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Print. Watt lan. Conrad s Heart of Darkness and the Critics. Essays on Conrad. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Print. Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 4(5) April,