3 - ‘Heart of Darkness’

Summary

I confounded the beat of the drum with the beating of my heart.

Marlow in ‘Heart of Darkness’, p. 142

It is appropriate that ‘Heart of Darkness’ should begin in the Thames estuary – the very place where The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’ ended – for it is, in a special sense, a continuation of that novel. ‘Heart of Darkness’ takes up the affirmations of its predecessor, and exposes them to a process of systematic questioning. The test of the sea generates values which are submitted to the test of the wilderness.

In respect of the positives it discovers, the world of The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’ is a self-sufficient one. This does not mean that its inhabitants are unrepresentative, particularly in the weaker side of their nature; or that the redemption they achieve together cannot be sought in other forms of service. On the contrary, the voyage of the Narcissus – particularly in its final phase – is susceptible of wider application. As the ship approaches England, a sudden glimpse of the coast leads the narrator to imagine the island as some mighty vessel in its own right, which its subjects can serve much as its crew serves the Narcissus. And later, after the ship has berthed, and a swarm of strangers has taken possession of her ‘in the name of the sordid earth’, and the narrator sees the men, now paid off, drifting in front of London's historic Tower, he immediately associates them with their ‘fighting prototypes’ – the great line of English maritime heroes.