Symbols in Heart of Darkness -- a preliminary study, part 1

Joseph Conrad’s one of my favorite writers, and I like “Heart of Darkness” more than anything else he has written.

Things we love tend to stick around — and, while I was rereading Titus Burkhardt’s “Alchemy”, some images and concepts kept reminding me of something that, I discovered after a while, was Conrad’s masterpiece.

The interplay between them seems to go deep. I wanted to explore it for a while; whenever I have something to say about it, I’ll write here. But don’t hold your breath, these things take time.

An important preliminary note is that I don’t think Conrad’s intention was to write an alchemical, or symbolical, treatise in disguise, and in fact to reduce works of fiction to these aspects are always reductive.

What I do think is that, when the resemblances are real (and I believe in this case they are), noticing them helps us in understanding both literature and alchemy/astrology/etc.

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I won’t reference Alchemy directly in this text, but it will probably happen sooner or later.

What I want to talk about now is where and how the story begins.

They (the unnamed narrator, Marlow, and the three other members of the group) are not in a random place, they’re not random characters, and their setting cannot be explained as a necessary introduction to the story. Their getting together could happen anywhere else — in a bar, an office, etc (as we’ll see below, Conrad gathers the same characters at the beginning of “Youth”, at a different place and with very different descriptions).

But they are in a boat, at the mouth of a river, a very specific river, crucial to the language in which the story is told, and to the kind of stories it belongs to.

The mouth of the Thames is the beginning, the end, and the center of the water road for the English.

The symbolism of the water is — sorry for the pun — one of the most fertile in history.

The Vedanta likens the liberated, who unites with the Supreme Brahma by identification with Him, to a river which, in its mouth, identifies with the waves of the ocean. That is, the mouth, the end of the river course (the end of human life), by identifying itself with the sum of the possibilities of the Principle, is freed from limitation — including time (and death).

And the descriptions of the meeting seem to put it in a “place” without time — or, at least, to copy Virginia Woolf, in a “place” where “time flaps on the mast”.

I’ll let them (the unnamed narrator, and Marlow) speak for themselves, cutting and commenting whenever appropriate.

The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest.

This is not very subtle, if you paid attention to what I have written just above. This is a physical, definite, setting. But this is also an image of the moment right before death.

A cruising yawl is not made for professional navigation, but to recreational, personal, purposes. People tend to stay long periods of time in this kind of boats, living in them. She has two masts, one, the bigger one in front of (fore), and the smaller one behind (aft), the sailor. The bigger and stable one is responsible for motion; the smaller one, direction.

This could be taken as a symbol of the human being, with the higher part providing life itself (motion), the lower part the direction, and we between them, steering the ship.

The very name of the boat, Nellie, fits. It may come from, among other names, Ellen, Helen, or Eleanor, all of them coming from the Greek Helena, which means “bright light” or “shining one”.

There was no wind enough to blow the sails anymore, which were without a flutter. She was at rest. The anchor, therefore, is not preventing her from navigating, but from drifting. That’s the “intended” end point for all our crusing yawls. The anchor (heavy, pointing downards) and the sea waters (moving around, sideways) emphasize that this seems to be the final destination. Matter goes down, waters move around, wind loses strength.

The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide.

… but this is also the beginning. The wind is nearly calm, but the tide doesn’t stop. There still some journeying to be made, but it has to wait for the waters to be right.

The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offing the sea and the sky were welded together without a joint, and in the luminous space the tanned sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red clusters of canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of varnished sprits. A haze rested on the low shores that ran out to sea in vanishing flatness. The air was dark above Gravesend, and farther back still seemed condensed into a mournful gloom, brooding motionless over the biggest, and the greatest, town on earth.

This isn’t very subtle either.

The mouth of the big river is the beginning of a journey without end, because it is after time (time is of this world).

The journey is into the sky (the sea is the same “space” as the sky, they being “welded together without a joint”, only at that moment).

There are other boats there, this is the common destination. It’s hazy, gloomy, mournful, dark, not clearly defined.

Gravesend is mentioned, of course, because it’s actually there, by the Thames. But it is a word that obviously (although by no means etymologically) reminds us of the word “grave”.

The darkness is here, but looms over mankind — motionless, perpetual, above London. I do not know if the word had exactly the same meaning then as now, but calling it a “town”, not a “city”, seem to reduce life in it to its correct proportions when compared to what happens aftewards.

But the boats point upwards in “red clusters of canvas sharply peaked” and shine, although not as a star or as the sun, but in gleams, reflections. And these gleams happen in the varnished sprits, which point upwards. The word, which means pole, ultimately comes from sprutō “sprout” in West Germanic, and has nothing, as far as etymology is concerned, with “spirit”, but, again, as in “Gravesend/Grave send” mentioned above, it does resemble it.

The Director of Companies was our captain and our host. We four affectionately watched his back as he stood in the bows looking to seaward. On the whole river there was nothing that looked half so nautical. He resembled a pilot, which to a seaman is trustworthiness personified. It was difficult to realize his work was not out there in the luminous estuary, but behind him, within the brooding gloom.

There are five of them. I do not know if it is possible to make a decent association between them and the five faculties of action/five faculties of sensation that, again according to the Vedanta, are reaborbed, with the word, into manas, the inner sense, at the point of death, but it’s interesting that they are five.

And the description of these people is, here, very different from the beginning of Youth, as we’ll see below.

It’s remarkable that the Director — a position of authority — is two times more nautical that anything else on the whole river, and resembles a pilot, which “to a seaman is trustworthiness personified”, but his work is not there, in the “luminous estuary”, but behind him, within the brooding gloom.

A person of authority on that special moment, who is trusworthiness personified, but who has work among humanity. This is Man, I agree; but no ordinary man.

Between us there was, as I have already said somewhere, the bond of the sea. Besides holding our hearts together through long periods of separation, it had the effect of making us tolerant of each other’s yarns—and even convictions.

The bond of the sea, of what happens after the wait, unites these five gentlemen. The “somewhere” here refers to Youth. This is how they are described there:

We were sitting round a mahogany table that reflected the bottle, the claret-glasses, and our faces as we leaned on our elbows. There was a director of companies, an accountant, a lawyer, Marlow, and myself. The director had been a Conway boy, the accountant had served four years at sea, the lawyer—a fine crusted Tory, High Churchman, the best of old fellows, the soul of honour—had been chief officer in the P. & O. service in the good old days when mail-boats were square-rigged at least on two masts, and used to come down the China Sea before a fair monsoon with stun’-sails set alow and aloft. We all began life in the merchant service. Between the five of us there was the strong bond of the sea, and also the fellowship of the craft, which no amount of enthusiasm for yachting, cruising, and so on can give, since one is only the amusement of life and the other is life itself.”

The description is detailed; it gives some background to the some of the characters, they seem more human, more well-defined.

Yes, in a sense not doing it again here is just avoiding repetition.

On the other hand, this is another book, the reader is not expected to read one in order to understand the other. And the comparison between the director in Youth (a graduate from a famous ship school) and in Heart of Darkness (a psychopomp, an authoritative man between worlds) is striking. And it is noteworthy that one meeting is around a drinking table and the other at the mouth of the Thames.

Lastly, Youth (as the name implies, and the last sentence of the paragraph explicits) is concerned with life itself. Heart of Darkness begins at the end of it (but, as we shall see later, things are not that clear-cut here).

Let’s proceed to the current description of the other members.

The Lawyer—the best of old fellows—had, because of his many years and many virtues, the only cushion on deck, and was lying on the only rug. The Accountant had brought out already a box of dominoes, and was toying architecturally with the bones. Marlow sat cross-legged right aft, leaning against the mizzen-mast. He had sunken cheeks, a yellow complexion, a straight back, an ascetic aspect, and, with his arms dropped, the palms of hands outwards, resembled an idol.

It’s almost if they were, for a lack of a better word, transfigured here.

The old lawyer sits on the only rug there. He is not the “boss”, this is the director; but he does have a prominent position. Many years, many virtues, the law. Sits on a limited square of woven fabric (the tissue is a recurring symbol both of individual lives and the cosmos in many religions and traditions), and holds the only cushion (the relief, the protection against hardness). This is not only a lawyer, but the Law.

The accountant plays with small bones, which are also dominoes. He builds and destroys small houses and castles (that’s what “toying architecturally” means) of bones. He is Reckoning.

Marlow (of whom no description is given in Youth) leans against the smaller mast, the one which is usually behind the sailor. He looks like an Eastern idol, and is the one who will actually tell a life story to the accountant, the lawyer, the director, and the narrator. He is also the one who has a name.

There’s no mystery here. Marlow is where the heart of the boat is, where the skipper sails. He is presenting it to the Authority, while the Law and the Reckoning listen.

It we needed any other clue, Marlow is at the same time the narrator and someone else. The narrator (the unnamed testimony, talking to the reader) by his turn is the author and is not the author. The human being is watching someone who seems holy, ascetic, worn-out, tell a tale from the seat of command of the ship, to the Authority, the Law, and the Acountant.

This is most definitely the moment before death.

However, the four descriptions also evoke something else, if we stick to a somewhat stereotyped view of religions (and remember this is a work written within a Christian civilization).

The authority psychopomp, the Director, could stand for Christianity.

The Lawyer (with the emphasis of the law and the distinct segregation between him and his peers by being the only one sitting on the only rug) could be Judaism, as the Accountant and his handling of bones — of deeds in life — reminds me of Islam and its emphasis on good and bad deeds and of the Final Reckoning.

Marlow’s description is definitely “Eastern” (I repeat: stereotypes, from a Christian viewpoint), and could be either Hindu or Taoism.

The director, satisfied the anchor had good hold, made his way aft and sat down amongst us.

Notice how it is a bit odd that the Director (not Marlow or the narrator, two sailors) who checks the anchor.

But it’s by his authority that the boat waits, he is who binds her there (and elsewhere, and elsewhen).

We exchanged a few words lazily. Afterwards there was silence on board the yacht. For some reason or other we did not begin that game of dominoes. We felt meditative, and fit for nothing but placid staring. The day was ending in a serenity of still and exquisite brilliance. The water shone pacifically; the sky, without a speck, was a benign immensity of unstained light; the very mist on the Essex marsh was like a gauzy and radiant fabric, hung from the wooded rises inland, and draping the low shores in diaphanous folds. Only the gloom to the west, brooding over the upper reaches, became more sombre every minute, as if angered by the approach of the sun.

“Rage, rage, against the dying of the light”. But the gloom seems angered, not the sea, not the sky, a continuations of the sky, and definitely not the five. And it was not the time to play with the small bones, either.

And at last, in its curved and imperceptible fall, the sun sank low, and from glowing white changed to a dull red without rays and without heat, as if about to go out suddenly, stricken to death by the touch of that gloom brooding over a crowd of men.

Forthwith a change came over the waters, and the serenity became less brilliant but more profound. The old river in its broad reach rested unruffled at the decline of day, after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its banks, spread out in the tranquil dignity of a waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth. We looked at the venerable stream not in the vivid flush of a short day that comes and departs for ever, but in the august light of abiding memories. And indeed nothing is easier for a man who has, as the phrase goes, “followed the sea” with reverence and affection, than to evoke the great spirit of the past upon the lower reaches of the Thames.

OK, lights out. Memories in, from men who followed the sea, while the old river doesn’t care — but does his good service as always.

To the uttermost ends of the earth.

Now, the text changes and makes a transition to the beginning of Marlowe’s story, justifying, as it were, the appropriateness of the storytelling itself.

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We’re still on the third page of the book, but this text is already too long. I’ll come back when I can.

What will most probably happen is that the next newsletter post will be about something else, while I think of this one and of what comes next. But I will go back to the Thames (and, hopefully, from there into the Congo River)

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See you soon.