Psychoanalyzing Heart of Darkness

Barry states that psychoanalysis investigates the interaction between the conscious and unconscious mind (92). Later he identifies five focal points of a Freudian analysis. For my example, I’ve chosen the second method, which focuses on the unconscious motives of the author and the characters (Barry 100). Specifically I want to explore the unconscious motives for Marlow’s fascination with Kurtz in Heart of Darkness.

Readers are first introduced to Kurtz when Marlow arrives at the Company’s station in Africa. The information provided indicates Kurtz is “a first-class agent” and “a very remarkable person” who not only “sends in as much ivory as all the rest put together” but also “will be somebody in the Administration someday” (Conrad 19). In the next mention of Kurtz, he is “a prodigy, an emissary of pity, science, and progress” and “a special being” (Conrad 25). At his point, Marlow claims he isn’t really interested in Kurtz, but he “was curious to see whether this man who had come out equipped with moral ideas of some sort would climb to the top” (Conrad 31).

It isn’t until Marlow overhears the Station Manager and his uncle talking of Kurtz that Marlow becomes truly interested. And what peaks Marlow’s interest? Not the moral, on-the-rise Kurtz, but the Kurtz who started to come back to civilization but only made it 300 miles before returning to the Inner Station; the Kurtz who is the subject of “strange rumors”; the Kurtz who, the Uncle believes, should be hung as an example (Conrad 33).

From this point on, Marlow is, rather obsessively, focused on Kurtz. The river he travels on “crawl[s] towards Kurtz – exclusively” (Conrad 35). He even equates Kurtz to “an enchanted princess sleeping in a fabulous castle” (42). Is Marlow Kurtz’s knight-in-shining-armor?

Another possibility is that Marlow sees in Kurtz a freedom, a projection of Marlow’s own desires to “go ashore for a howl and a dance”, an action he indicates would be quite possible except he “had not time” (Conrad 36). Kurtz succumbs to the darkness, to the primal urges civilized man represses. Even Marlow’s description of the land could be equally applicable to man: “We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there – there you could look at a thing monstrous and free” (Conrad 36). While Marlow is discussing the river, the geography, in this quote, it is quite easy to replace monster with person. People are “shackled” by civilization, conquerors of their more primitive impulses, but according to Marlow, this is not the case in Africa, and a man once civilized can escape those shackles and be “monstrous and free”.

The Freudian notion of “the uncanny” can explain Marlow’s obsession with Kurtz. Based on a reading of Sigmund Freud’s “The Uncanny” and honestly, common knowledge of the term in Western culture, something can be described as “uncanny” if it is simultaneously familiar and strange, an odd twist on something a person (felt like) he/she already knew (418-430). In the case of Kurtz, we have a man originally described as an up-and-comer, a moral, civilized man. And Marlow still sees him as such, but Marlow also sees the man with an “impenetrable darkness” (Conrad 68). The uncanny is both fascinating and repulsive, and that is Kurtz to Marlow.

Or perhaps Marlow’s obsession can be explained by one line: “Whatever he was, he was not common” (Conrad 50).

Barry, Peter. “Pyschoanalytic Criticism.” Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. 3rd ed. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009. 92-115. Print.

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness (Norton Critical Edition). Ed. Paul B. Armstrong. 4^th ed. New York: Norton, 2006. Print.

Freud, Sigmund. “The Uncanny.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Eds. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. 2^nd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. 418-430. Print.