The Existentialism in Heart of Darkness

Abstract: This paper gives a general introduction of existentialism, and tries to analyze the novel of Heart of Darkness in the perspective of Sartre’s main points of existentialism. In Heart of Darkness, Conrad described a world full of misery, loneliness and despair, which is similar with the world where existentialists lived.

Key words: existentialism; Heart of Darkness; mystery; coolness; absurdity; despair

中图分类号： B0 文献标识码： A文章编号：1672-1578（2012)02-0008-02

1 Introduction

Existentialism is a philosophical and literary movement that is generally considered a study that pursues meaning in existence and seeks value for the existing individual. It emphasizes action, freedom and decision as fundamental to human existence and is opposed to the rational tradition and to positivism. Moreover, it tends to view human beings as subjects in an indifferent, objective, often ambiguous, and absurd universe. Existentialism is often associated with anxiety, dread, awareness of death and freedom.

What was human’s existence? What position should man hold in the world? How did man deal with the various problems? How did man examine and evaluate the world? Whether was there a kind of common reason? Existentialism provides part of the answers to these questions.

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1908), a great French existentialist, inheriting and developing the theories of Soren Aabye Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger,is one of the most important representatives of existentialism in the west.

He holds the view that existence precedes essence in his book Being and nothingness. He explains this idea: “What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world―and defines himself afterwards. … Thus, there is no human nature, because there is no God to have a conception of it.” (from Existentialism Is a Humanism,《萨特与中国》附文，p201) We have no predetermined nature or essence that controls what we are, what we do, or what is valuable for us. Living in a world where each one has his own standard to do his business, we often confront and fight with each other, thus contradictions are inevitable.

Sartre’s second view is that man is free to choose. To him, man is radically free to act independently of determination by outside influences. It sounds like a happy dream. However, extreme freedom usually leads to loneliness. Like Nietzsche, Sartre does not believe that God will save man. “Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside himself.” (from Existentialism Is a Humanism,《萨特与中国》附文，p215) To Sartre, God of course does not exist.

Finally a conclusion’s been gotten: the world is absurd, life is miserable. Because of such kind of individualism and freedom, each person has his own right to carry out his own idea in the real world, so every one will try his best with all kinds of ways to take the biggest benefit for himself. As a result, the world is full of contradictions, fighting, crimes and moral degradation. There is no reason, no truth, no morality and no warmth, thus people feel lonely and miserable. However, Sartre advocates that existentialism is a kind of humanism, encouraging us to find our existence.

2 Existentialism in Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness was written at the end of 19th century when existentialism did not spring out. However, Conrad, like a prophet, noticed the cruelty, loneliness and despair in the colonized district. The whole story was Marlow’s experience of sailing in the river, in which Marlow always wanted to experience something and to find something―may be the meaning of existence and the meaning of life. However, Marlow was greatly disappointed at the end, because he found the life, especially the life of Kurtz, seemed useless and meaningless.

To the existentialists, human was separate from each other and independent of nature, which meant that we human beings could neither communicate with each other, nor understand or communicate with nature. As a result, human beings felt lonely, cold, frightened and hollow. To them, human heart was as incomprehensible as nature.

2.1Complication and Mystery

As the existentialists, we find ourselves existing in a world not of our own making and indifferent to our concerns. We are not the source of our existence, but find ourselves thrown into a world we can neither control nor understand.

In Heart of Darkness, Conrad described the scenes or incidents very complicated and hard to understand, which reflected the complication of human heart. Marlow felt “this land, this river, this jungle, the very arch of this blazing sky, appear to so hopeless and so dark, so impenetrable to human thought, so pitiless to human weakness. ”(p80 Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad, Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2004.以下引文如无注明均出自此书) There was “An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest” (p48). In this novel, the river and the forest were always mystery, symbolizing the objective and the cool outside world. The story was mainly happened in the process of the sailing in the river, so it seemed that Marlow could not reach his purpose of seeing Kurtz because of the blocks of river and forest. People’s wishes were usually contradicted with the realist world. “What greatness had not floated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth!” (p5) Marlow said a young agent “has to live in the midst of the in comprehensible, which is also detestable.”(p7) The Russian’s existence “was improbable, inexplicable, and altogether bewildering”(p79). The nature and the situation of the dark place were variable and changeable, difficult to understand as the human heart. The world that Marlow described was full of complication and mystery, so human beings felt bewildered.

2.2 Absurdity and Ridiculousness

Without God there is no purpose, no value, and no meaning in the world. That is the foundational proposition for existentialists. A world without purpose, value, or meaning is literally senseless, worthless, meaningless, empty, and hopeless. It is in fact absurd.

Conrad also wrote directly the scenes, incidents or characters absurd or ridiculous. The former captain Fresleven was killed in a scuffle because of two black hens―a trivial thing (p11); the French man-of-war shelled the bush where there was not even a shed, “a small flame would dart and vanish…and nothing happened. Nothing could happen” (p18); there was an old hippo usually roaming at night over the station grounds, the pilgrims used to shoot at it but always in vain(p38); the ship was attacked by the natives with arrows, Marlow jerked the line of the steam-whistle and the natives were frightened away by the screech (p65).

The Russian “wanted nothing from the wilderness but space to breathe in and to push on through. His need was to exist, and to move onward at the greatest possible risk, and with a maximum of privation.”(p79) He was willing to stay in this place even if there was no hope, no imagination, and no improvement. The Russian took care of Kurtz even if Kurtz once nearly killed him for more ivory. Marlow said: “His very existence was improbable, inexplicable, and altogether bewildering.”(p79) He was like Sisyphus who rolled a stone up a hill every day even if he knew the stone would roll free back down to the bottom of the hill every day. Kurtz was the same kind of person, for he knew his glorious day would never come back, he still refused to leave the backward place.

In the dark and strange place “far from civilization”, Conrad gived a vivid description of the strange incidents. Here everything seemed so odd and absurd.

2.3 Coolness and Ruthlessness

We are faced with the lack of any external source of value and determination. We are faced with the awesome responsibility of choosing our own nature and values, with no other person to rely on. People will feel cool, and there is no kindness or sympathy. People feel a kind of unspeakable pressure of existence in the world, and the relationship between them is cool, far and strange.

In this novel, the so called “civilized” people factually robbed the natives ruthlessly. The western people planned to bring hope and civilization, but in fact they even destroyed the native simple and peaceful life, finally making the western people themselves primitive. The former captain Fresleven―“the gentlest, quietest creature that ever walked on two legs” (p11)―whacked the old nigger mercilessly because of two hens. For more ivory, Kurtz nearly killed the Russian―perhaps his only friend in Congo. A person could do anything to get his benefit. In such a world, there was no morality, friendship or warmth. The manager and his uncle hated Kurtz because he got more ivory. The accountant treated the sick man cool, “‘the groans of the sick man,’ he said, distract my attention.”(p24)All the people seemed to only care about his own business. People lived in a so cool world, and why they existed― perhaps because of money. In the world of free choices, desire deprived of humanity.

2.4 Loneliness and Despair

In seeing the contrast between the absolute freedom we have to create and the world we cannot control, we may feel despairing, because we can never realize all of our freedom in the objective world.

As for the existentialists, the world is full of wars and contradictions, which bring us loneliness and hopelessness. Conrad described an extreme place full of loneliness and despair. In Heart of Darkness, language functioned a little to the characters. The white people did not understand the dialects of the natives, women seldom spoke, the Russian “suggested to me in desolate exclamations, completed by shrugs, in interrupted phrases, in hints ending in deep sighs” (p82). Marlow said: “Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world”(p48). There was no full communication or understanding here. Kurtz was lonely. No one supported his great plan at last, he almost had no friend―the Russian run away, and Kurtz’s mistress quarreled with him. “He (Kurtz) had kicked the very earth to pieces. He was alone…”(94). What was more, Kurtz’s Intended was lonely, too. She loved him so much and decided to live alone after his death. However, she never understood him and never knew he had a mistress in Congo. Kurtz’s last words “The horror! The horror!” shows that he was in great despair. Marlow wrote: “No eloquence could have been so withering to one’s belief in mankind as his final burst of sincerity (p95)…I found with humiliation that probably I would have nothing to say (p100)”. Maybe when one is in the utter most of bitterness and despair, he will mock everything, including death. Sartre said that our birth was absurd, and our death was absurd, too.

3 Conclusion

In Heart of Darkness, through Conrad’s description of scenes, incidents and characters, the author presents us an experience full of mystery, coolness, absurdity, and despair in the complicated world full of external contradictions and mysteries.However, like existentialists, the author was not thoroughly pessimistic. Showing us the ugly experience, Conrad may hope that such existence would change some day in the future with the help of all of us.

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作者简介：翟俊巧（1984 -），女，河南洛阳人，洛阳理工学院外语系，英语语言文学硕士，助教，研究方向为语言习得。