Conrad in Africa and the Narrative Form of Heart of Darkness

Conrad: Heart of Darkness

In this course, Dr Keith Carabine (University of Kent) explores Joseph Conrad's 1899 novella, Heart of Darkness. The course begins by thinking about Conrad's own experiences in Africa, as recorded in his 'Personal Record' (1912) and 'Geography and Some Explorers' (1924), as well as the narrative form of the novel – an oral tale told by Marlow to a group of anonymous friends. In the second module, we look more closely at Marlow, focusing in particular on the scene in which he arrives at the Company Station, before moving on in the third and fourth modules to explore the character of Kurtz – looking first at his journal, which ends with the line 'Exterminate all the brutes!', and then at his famous final words in the novel, 'The horror! The horror!' In the fifth and final module, we turn to the ending of the novel, in which Marlow lies to the Intended about Kurtz's final words – 'The last word he pronounced was – your name.'

Conrad in Africa and the Narrative Form of Heart of Darkness

In this module, we think about Conrad's own experiences in Africa, as recorded in 'A Personal Record' (1912) and 'Geography and Some Explorers' (1924), before exploring the several functions of the narrative form of the poem: an oral tale told by Marlow to a group of friends, who is himself introduced to the reader by an anonymous first-person narrator.
Reading list:
– Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1899)
– Joseph Conrad, A Personal Record (1912)
– Joseph Conrad, Geography and Some Explorers (1924)
– Joseph Conrad, 'An Outpost of Progress' (1897)
– Joseph Conrad, Youth (1898)