Conrad’s Heart of
Darkness
Terry W. Thompson
Most modern theologians view the
story of Saint Christopher as little more than a medieval legend, a charming but
apocryphal tale that was perhaps originally based on a real historical
personage--not unlike King Arthur or Robin Hood--but was heavily embellished by
the imagination and superstition prevalent at the time. According to John
Coulson's The Saints: A Concise Biographical Dictionary, Christopher was born
somewhere in Asia Minor during the first half of the third century and
eventually "died a martyr, probably in Lycia, during the persecution of the
Emperor Decius in 250" (110). His enduring story "appears to have been
formulated first in the east in the sixth century and to have reached the west
some three centuries later" (Coulson 110). As a young man, Christopher "wished
to serve the mightiest of masters"; to find such a great master and teacher, the
future saint made his home next to a popular ford in a swift river (Attwater
85). There, so that he could meet and converse with as many wayfarers as
possible, he became a ferryman, hoisting travelers onto his shoulders and
carrying them one by one across the river for a small fee. In this manner, he
hoped some day to encounter the great man who would prove worthy of his faith
and who would become his spiritual guide.
As the years passed, thousands
rode across the river on his broad shoulders, but none measured up to the
requirements that Christopher had set for the man to whom he would dedicate his
life. Then one night, when he had begun to despair of ever meeting his
long-sought master, "he was carrying a child across the river when the child
became so heavy that Christopher could hardly get across. 'No wonder!' said the
child. 'You have been carrying the whole world. I am Jesus Christ, the king you
seek'" (Attwater 85). The saint-to-be then gave up everything to follow the new
faith and serve the risen Lord: "After such an experience it is not surprising
that, in spite of all dangers, Christopher should preach Christ to all who came
his way, with such conviction and zeal that the earthly agonies of martyrdom
were as nothing to him" (Coulson 111). From that day onward, Christopher--whose
name translates from the Greek Christophoros as "The one who carries the
Christ"--became the patron saint of all travelers.
Late in the final
chapter of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness--"now the most celebrated short
novel in the English language"--there is a fleeting but very illuminating
allusion to this enduring Christian legend (Billy 65). After the "law-abiding,
morally sensitive" Marlow has completed his arduous journey up the Congo River
to Kurtz's isolated station and has found the object of his search in horrible
condition, both physically and mentally, he takes Kurtz aboard the small river
boat to ferry him back downstream to a European settlement (Karl 126). Once
there, Kurtz can be treated and cured, then assimilated back into "civilized"
society. However, Kurtz is irresistibly drawn back toward the jungle because, as
Marlow soon discovers, "'it had taken him, loved him, embraced him, got into his
veins, consumed his flesh, and sealed his soul to its own by the inconceivable
ceremonies of some devilish initiation'" (Conrad 84). That night, under cover of
darkness and despite his illness, Kurtz escapes from the ship. Crawling on all
fours like a small child, he makes his way back through the tall grass, creeping
desperately toward the dancing fires and throbbing drums of the native
village.
Fearing that Kurtz will incite the tribesmen to massacre the
handful of whites aboard the boat, Marlow makes a frantic effort to find the
escaped invalid. In utter desperation, Marlow declares, "'I tried to break the
spell--the heavy, mute spell of the wilderness--that seemed to draw him to its
pitiless breast by the awakening of forgotten and brutal instincts, by the
memory of gratified and monstrous passions'" (116). Marlow sees movement in the
tall grass and, by circling around, intercepts Kurtz before he can rejoin his
Congolese myrmidons. He then takes the dying man back to the relative safety of
the small vessel: "'I kept my head pretty well; but when I had him at last
stretched on the couch, I wiped my forehead, while my legs shook under me as
though I had carried half a ton on my back down that hill. And yet I had only
supported him, his bony arm clasped round my neck--and he was not much heavier
than a child'" (118; my emphasis).
In this dark, surreal allusion to the Saint Christopher legend, Marlow helps a mass murderer and colonial despot stagger down to the river's edge, feeling the skeletal man grow heavier and heavier with every step. Because his mother was half-English and his father was half-French, "'all Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz,'" explains Marlow (86). Just as the Christ child carried the weight of the world's sins upon his shoulders and then transferred that awful burden to Saint Christopher's, the symbolic weight of all the sins of European colonialism in the late nineteenth century--a time of rapine seldom matched in recorded history, whether in the Belgian Congo or elsewhere--come to rest on the shoulders of Marlow. If Kurtz is a type of Christ figure offering up his life for Europe's sins, as many readers have described him, then Marlow, the contemplative loner who seeks a great man to follow, provides a world-weary Saint Christopher figure, a "Kurtzophoros," as it were, "The one who carries the Kurtz."
"Marlow is regenerated through his bond with Kurtz, and his saving illusion is to be transformed into an image of Kurtz, to become a voice whose task is to tell the story," to become, in essence, a traveling evangelist, a not-so-secret sharer of Kurtz's deeper meaning (Ressler 21). Even many years after the horrifying events that transpired in the upper reaches of the Congo, as he crouches still and Buddha-like on the darkened deck of the Nellie, Marlow cannot stop himself from recalling, remembering, resurrecting Kurtz, the "'wandering and tormented thing'" he encountered in the primeval African darkness (Conrad 116). The man who gave his life for European colonialism, who died to spread "the Victorian religion of progress," remains at the very center of Marlow's existence, and always will (Murfin 109).
WORKS CITED
Attwater, Donald. The Avenel Dictionary of Saints. New York: Avenel, 1981.
Bennett, Carl D. Joseph Conrad. New York: Continuum, 1991.
Billy, Ted. "Heart of Darkness: A Critical Overview." A Joseph Conrad Companion. Ed. Leonard Orr and Ted Billy. Westport: Greenwood, 1999. 65-78.
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Heart of Darkness and The Secret Sharer. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1994. 1-137.
Coulson, John, ed. The Saints: A Concise Biographical Dictionary. New York: Hawthorn, 1958.
Karl, Frederick R. "Introduction to the Danse Macabre: Conrad's Heart of Darkness." Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness: A Case Study in Contemporary Criticism. Ed. Ross C. Murfin. New York: St. Martin's, 1989. 123-38.
Murfin, Ross C. Introduction. Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness: A Case Study in Contemporary Criticism. New York: St. Martin's, 1989. 3-16.
Ressler, Steve. Joseph Conrad: Consciousness and Integrity. New York: New York UP, 1988.
