Heart of Darkness and The Congo Diary

The story s major re-discovery dates from the 1950s when its apocalyptic symbolism and existentialist uncertainty seem to have entered the collective consciousness of a generation who lived through the Second World War or were coming to terms with its legacy. As one critic of the time put it, the story had become a Pilgrim s Progress for our pessimistic and psychologizing age (Guerard, p. 33). Its more recent impact has been equally dramatic, if more controversial. Now standing at the centre of a wider contemporary debate about race, imperialism and feminism, its æsthetic dimensions and experimental character have almost been left behind. It has acquired the character of an awkward problem-novel, a standard text in the classroom and -- for better or worse -- a litmus-test for a variety of theoretical preoccupations. As a modern quest parable translated into many languages, it has simultaneously had a powerful generative effect upon twentieth-century writers and film-makers, inspiring emulations, adaptations and counter-versions.


I


Conrad s direct and indirect engagement with things African has a long pre-history. It extends as far back as his childhood, when the young Pole pored over maps of the continent, devoured tales of the first European explorers in Africa and vicariously shared the perils of Dr Livingstone s travels. Like all dreams of heroic adventure, this one was destined to meet with a rude awakening. In 1890, towards the end of his career as a merchant seaman, the thirty-three-year-old Conrad signed a long-term contract to work for a Belgian company in the Congo Free State. The country he entered had since 1885 been the personal possession of King Leopold II of Belgium who, under the guise of a philanthropic concern to bring light to the dark continent, was brutally engaged in what Conrad later described as the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience and geographical exploration (Last Essays, p. 17).
 
Conrad s growing desire to return to Europe was unexpectedly realized when he suffered a physical breakdown: plagued with the after-effects of dysentery and malaria, he ended his stay after seven months, returned to a period of hospitalization in London and suffered a legacy of ill-health for the rest of his life. His first-hand encounter with the effects of Leopold s rule in the Congo almost certainly left him with deeper scars: according to a close friend, the episode formed the turning-point in his mental life , shaped his transformation from a sailor to a writer and swept away the generous illusions of his youth (Garnett, p. xii).
 
One of the products of this period