An Analysis of Realism in Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ with Reference to Lewis Carroll’s ‘Through the Looking Glass’

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness was published in 1899. It talks about the travels of a seaman named Charlie Marlow. In the novel, Marlow narrates his experience in Africa. Imperialism is one of the main themes of the novel and Conrad is often analyzed in terms of his portrayal of the power dynamic between the colonizers and the colonized. Conrad portrays Africa as a fantasy world. I wish to analyse Africa as it is described in Heart of Darkness and compare it to Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass to prove that there is very little realism in the way Conrad depicts Africa.

I will begin by analyzing the African landscape and comparing it with Wonderland. I will point out how emphasis on certain aspects of a landscape can influence the reader’s opinion of it. I will then discuss the way in which the characters are described and compare them to different characters in Wonderland. I will also talk about the role of a fantasy world itself and the extent to which it sheds light on problems of the real world.

Conrad describes Africa as a prehistoric world. Marlow says that going to Africa was like “going back to the very beginnings of the earth”. He talks of a world filled with vegetation with a general atmosphere of mystery. This conjures images of a mysterious land which has not been touched by humans. However, this was not really the case. We see that an aura of a fantasy world is created right from the beginning of the novel. In fact, Marlow’s Africa is quite similar to Alice’s Wonderland. Both lands are unexplored by the world. Both lands also contain a strange forest, which is only explored later in the novel. In fact, Wonderland seems to be more “objectively” described than Africa. Alice does not express much emotion while surveying the landscape, whereas Marlow instantly gets absorbed into the mysterious atmosphere of the land. This is drastically different from the way landscape would be described in a realist novel.

One aspect of realism is its attention to detail. This is seen in many nineteenth century novels. For example, Dickens’ novels provide detailed descriptions of the environment so that readers can form an accurate picture when they read his works. An accurate description of landscape enhances our understanding of the conditions in which the characters in the novel had to survive. The purpose of realist writing was to make an outsider understand the life of someone else. However, rather than making our perception of Africa clearer and more objective, Conrad’s description of its landscape leaves readers with the image of an unreal and dangerous world.

Even the characters in Heart of Darkness bear resemblance to characters from Through the Looking Glass and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Marlow is like Alice, since he is the one exploring new lands. The other places he goes to and the people he meets are all strange and alien to him. None of the other characters are “normal”. The Africans are cannibals with an innate bestiality. They speak in grunts and are always dirty. Even the white men seem unreal in contrast with the Africans. Marlow describes his astonishment to see a clean, well-dressed white man among the natives. He describes this man as a “miracle”. Marlow never fully understands his Wonderland, just like Alice never understands hers. He is swept away by events which are not in his control.

Mr. Kurtz is similar to the Red Queen in Through the Looking Glass. These two characters share a love of power and control. Mr. Kurtz also bears resemblance to the Queen of Hearts from Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The way the Queen of Hearts arbitrarily says, “Off with their heads!” is similar to the way in which Mr. Kurtz writes, “Exterminate the brutes!”. In fact, there are actual human heads on stakes near the place where Mr. Kurtz lives. Kurtz does not seem to care about the lives of the people working under him and only cares about monetary gain through obtainment of ivory. The Red Queen encourages Alice to try to become a queen, but does not seem comfortable when Alice actually becomes one. This behaviour is similar to the way in which Kurtz sees Marlow. He does not want Marlow to gain more than him from the ivory trade. Kurtz is a complicated man. However, Marlow sticks with him to the end, much like the way in which Alice continues to obey and respect the Red Queen, even after she becomes a queen herself.

While Mr. Kurtz mirrors the Red Queen, the manager of the Company seems to mirror the White Queen in Through the Looking Glass. The White Queen is more absent minded and always seems lost. She is forever dependent on the Red Queen. Similarly, the manager does not seem to have a particularly forceful personality. He tries to win Marlow’s trust so that the Company can gain from it. He is also dependent on Kurtz to obtain ivory for him. He never gets personally involved in the action of the novel and always remains distant.

The Russian man who Marlow meets before he meets Kurtz is similar to the Mad Hatter in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Readers never know whether this character is speaking the truth or not. He is dressed like a harlequin and has a rather strange and slightly comical personality as well. He also enters and leaves abruptly. Like the Mad Hatter, he seems trapped by his material conditions and takes the first chance he gets to escape them.

All the natives are given the same background roles as the variety of strange insects and animals that Alice meets in Through the Looking Glass. They occasionally speak, but their role in the story is limited. They are accepted as inferior and remain that way till the end of the novel. Everything from their “language” to their cannibalism is primitive. Marlow never looks at them as equals and at most can acknowledge that they were “good cannibals” because they did not eat the white men on the boat.

Alice is the only human in Wonderland. Marlow seems to be the only “human” in Africa. He describes everyone else as people who have been changed by the atmosphere of the place and have all become “barbaric”. They no longer seem to value human life. The Africans are busy being cannibals while the white men are all chasing ivory. The characters in both lands seem exaggerated. They all chase material wealth. Ivory, though white, seems to symbolize the darkness which capitalism is spreading around the world. The white man wreaks havoc around the world for his own material purposes. This fight for ivory seems to be Conrad’s’ way of portraying the negative side of imperialism and how it not only affects people of colonized countries, but also causes problems within Europe as well.

One could argue that Conrad portrays Africa from the perspective of someone who has never been there before. A new land always seems exotic simply by virtue of it being different from what one is accustomed to. It might even seem arrogant if a white man thinks he knows everything about a foreign land. However, Africa inHeart of Darkness contains certain elements which lessen its credibility. This can be better understood if considered alongside Coleridge’s idea of ‘willing suspension of disbelief’. He talks about this concept in Biographia Literaria. Coleridge says that readers will willingly accept the unreal for poetic reasons. To better understand this, consider Little Red Riding Hood. Wolves cannot talk, but for the purpose of the story, readers accept that they can. This is different from J. K. Rowling’sHarry Potter series because Rowling does her best to make Harry’s world seem real. She creates it so that readers might actually believe that it exists. She does not expect the audience to blindly believe in a magical world. However, Heart of Darkness tends to lean towards the style of Little Red Riding Hood. Conrad does not seem to try to make Africa ‘believable’. In Heart of Darkness, there is a certain amount of arbitrariness which pervades throughout the novel and makes it seem unrealistic. The landscape is often described as foggy and mysterious. The people are strange. The African “queen” seems to appear from nowhere and disappears just as strangely. Marlow talks of being on a ship full of cannibals who are very hungry and yet refrain from eating the others, purely from a sense of restraint which makes them “good natives”.

However, life itself is not always logical. By portraying Africa as an abstract world, Conrad could be creating an existential discourse on life itself. Like Alice, Marlow’s journey through Africa is one of self-realization. Lack of realism does not have to be seen as a negative attribute of the novel. In fact, Carroll’s Wonderland uses an imaginary world to reflect on aspects of real life. In Through the Looking Glass, the behaviour of Alice herself can be seen as imperialistic. Her only aim in the novel is to become a queen. Alice chases material gain. Mr. Kurtz can even be compared to the white rabbit in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The rabbit appears only for a short amount of time in the story and yet is the only reason Alice even enters Wonderland. Similarly, Marlow follows Kurtz into the “heart of darkness” for reasons which remain unclear. This arbitrariness of action can be seen as a reflection of the arbitrariness of cause and effect in life itself. The forest of no names illustrates Saussure’s idea of the arbitrary relationship between the signifier and signified. It also highlights the existential discourse on the purpose of life. Similarly, Heart of Darkness talks about problems of the real world through a fantastical depiction of Africa. Conrad shows how colonizers take over a foreign and unknown land and use it to live out their fantasies. He depicts the very real way in which colonized countries are taken for granted and simply used for material gain. Conrad also explores the depths of the human psyche. Heart of Darkness studies madness itself. It traces the way in which economic pressure and alien territories take their toll on the mind. The fantasy world puts problems of the real world into clearer light by drawing attention to the problem itself instead of focusing on cause and effect. Conrad might have purposely structured Africa like Carroll’s Wonderland for this very reason. Conrad uses realism to a certain extent in his depiction of issues related to imperialism and colonialization. However, he depicts a lot more about the real world through the unreal.

However, though Conrad talks about problems of the real world, Chinua Achebe points out that he does it in a way that normalizes other aspects of Africa in a rather problematic way. Readers seem to have no trouble accepting that it is a fact that Africa is such a “primitive” continent with a mysterious landscape and beast-like men. Conrad portrays Africa as an exotic land filled with adventure. Achebe does not like the way in which European readers in particular accept the Africa in Heart of Darkness as the Africa of the real world. In reality, Africa is different. Conrad has not portrayed it in a realistic way. As Achebe points out, readers must remember that Conrad is primarily a story teller and there should not be too much truth value attached to his novel, Heart of Darkness.