CONRAD
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aspect of the story is recognized, it should be clear to everyone that
Conrad as well as Marlow is rattled by the idea of Kurtz, who is
melodramatically overdrawn and yet scarcely permitted to appear.
In a broader sense we can see that Conrad's involvement in the
unconscious allegory of "Heart of Darkness" explains its combination
of hallucinatory vividness and garbled ideas. The whole account of
European imperialism in the Congo is brilliantly convincing, not
because of any developed ideology on Conrad's part but because in
his struggle with Oedipal "savagery" he feels within himself the
pathology of men who want both to improve the brutes and to ex–
terminate them. Because he thinks incessantly of usurping the father's
power and privilege, he grasps the zeal to lord it within a cutthroat
bureaucracy and to "tear treasure out of the bowels of the land."
No one is better at investing real observations of folly and sadism
with the fever of a mind that has already imagined the worst crimi–
nality and severest punishment. What he cannot do, however, is relin–
quish this charmed mood or think clearly about its basis. Since every–
thing that is necessary to Marlow's sanity is necessary to Conrad's,
he cannot crawl out of Marlow's mind even for a moment.
Hence the difficulty he has in conceiving of the Congolese except
as objects of persecution or diabolical headhunters; he too shares the
need for bogeymen whose howls and dances will be, not signs of a
culture, but simply abominations. He cannot even have Marlow say
without hedging that Christianizing the Congo is a mistake, for he
still aspires to put down the heathen in himself. In short, Conrad
finds no point of repose from which to assess the ordeal he puts us
through. All he can muster as a substitute are dabs of moral philos-
question this is Conrad's own story, with the difference that Conrad finds
reconciliation less feasible. But the image of the obedient harlequin has a
still more precise origin in Conrad's memories. In the letter I have quoted
as an epigraph he lamented his post-Congo depression and compared him–
self wistfully to the "Polichinelle" - or Pulcinello - of his childhood. This
gentlemanly toy, he explained, had put up with all manner of tender
abuse from its master. Despite such indignities as a broken nose and a
missing eye (the symbolism is obvious), and the licking off of its paint,
the harlequin had "received my confidences with a sympathetic air...."
When Conrad, near the end of his tale of filial usurpation, tried to intro–
duce an image of the reformed son, his latent cynicism hit upon this
figure. To obey was to be a clown, a "polite little Pole" whose nose and
eye were forfeit to the paternal avenger.
