In this blog post, we will carefully examine, from psychological, feminist, and postcolonial perspectives, how Conrad’s childhood, his seafaring experiences, and especially his time in the Congo influenced his portrayal of the “Other” in ‘Heart of Darkness’.

Conrad’s Childhood and Family History

Joseph Conrad’s childhood began under unfortunate circumstances. His homeland, Poland, suffered constant interference and invasion from neighboring great powers, and Poland’s fate—reduced to a minority nation following the Partitions of 1772—had a profound impact on Conrad’s life. Conrad was born in Ukraine, which at the time was part of Polish territory but under Russian rule. His father, Apollo Kozieński, was arrested by Russian police for anti-government activities and imprisoned in Warsaw; on May 9, 1862, he and his wife were convicted and exiled to Vologda in the north.
While in exile, when Conrad was seven years old, his mother died of tuberculosis; her death further exacerbated his already frail mental and physical condition. He subsequently suffered from pneumonia on several occasions and experienced epileptic seizures; due to this medical history, he continued to suffer from nervous exhaustion even as an adult. In 1868, Apollo was released from exile and settled in Kraków with his son, but the following year, in May 1869, Apollo also died of tuberculosis. Thereafter, his uncle Tadeusz Bobrowski became Conrad’s guardian.

Education, Early Reading, and Avoiding Military Service in Russia

Conrad was educated at home while living alone with his father, and even after his father’s death, he attended school irregularly due to health issues and received a great deal of private tutoring. He read extensively, particularly enjoying books on navigation and exploration. Born in Poland, he was subject to mandatory military service upon reaching a certain age under Russia’s autocratic regime; he sought to avoid this due to a regulation requiring 25 years of service in the Russian army.
Ultimately, in October 1874, Conrad left Poland for Marseille, France, having concluded that it was difficult to find hope under Russia’s autocratic rule.

Life as a Sailor in Marseille and Settlement in England

Upon arriving in Marseille, Conrad began his life as a sailor in earnest. There, he led a dissolute life and fell into financial difficulties due to his profligacy; in March 1878, he even attempted suicide. Following this incident, his uncle traveled to France to resolve his financial problems.
To avoid military service in Russia, Conrad attempted to change his nationality; he had previously applied for Austrian citizenship but was rejected. Ultimately, he resolved to become a British citizen and left the French merchant fleet to join the British merchant fleet. His association with the British merchant fleet became the catalyst for Conrad to write his works in English.
According to biographer Jeffrey Myers, it was not until adulthood that Conrad learned literary English by reading Shakespeare and Byron, while he picked up colloquial English from sailors and fishermen. While staying in London, he met his first British friend, G. F. W. Hope, a former sailor who had become an executive at several shipping companies; Hope’s yacht, the Nelly, later appeared in ‘Heart of Darkness’.

The 1890 Congo Voyage and Its Aftermath

In early 1890, Conrad visited Ukraine for ten weeks to see his uncle. Upon returning to Brussels, he learned that a contract for him to serve as captain of a steamship navigating the Congo River was taking shape. He was to succeed the previous captain, Johannes Freisleben, who had been killed in a conflict with tribal people.
The company that hired him was the “Belgian Company for Trade in the Upper Congo,” organized by King Leopold II of Belgium, which was tasked with establishing a monopoly on communications, administration, and commerce in the upper Congo. On May 10, 1890, Conrad departed from Bordeaux and arrived in Boma, then the capital of the Congo Free State, on June 12. After resting there for 23 days, he set out on foot toward Kinshasa accompanied by porters. When he arrived in Kinshasa on August 2, he found that the steamship Florida had been wrecked, so he boarded the Lua de Belge, commanded by a Danish captain, and headed upriver along the Congo.
After reaching their final destination, Stanley Falls, the captain fell ill, so Conrad took the helm for ten days on the return journey, taking aboard the ailing merchant Georges Antoine Klein. The captain later recovered and resumed command of the ship on September 15, but Klein died en route. When he returned to Kinshasa on September 24, Conrad was also suffering from malaria and dysentery; he terminated his contract prematurely and eventually returned to Europe after six months.
While health issues were a factor in Conrad’s decision to terminate his contract early, it also appears he anticipated that the deteriorating relationship between the trading post manager, Camille Delcommune, and the company’s deputy director would prevent him from regaining the captaincy. In any case, this experience gave rise to one short story and one novella, which are the very works covered in this translation: “The Outpost of Progress” (1896) and “Heart of Darkness” (1899).

The Ambiguity and Symbolism of “The Heart of Darkness”

What is interesting is that, although the novel was written based on actual experiences navigating the Congo River, there are almost no specific references to the Congo within the text. The word “Congo” never appears, and the Congo River is referred to in the work only as “that river” or “that great river.” Conrad refers to Marguerite Foradowska, who had asked him to take the captain’s post, only as “my dear aunt” in the novel, while Delcommune, with whom he had an uneasy relationship, is referred to only as “the Director.”
His predecessor, Preisleben, appears in the work under a modified name, and Klein—who was repeatedly mentioned in the manuscript—is replaced by the name Kurtz upon publication. Conrad believed that direct references to place names or personal names “destroy the illusion and remove the suggestiveness, thereby undermining the appeal of a work of art,” and this deliberate ambiguity contributed to making ‘Heart of Darkness’ a highly symbolic work.

Critical Interpretations: Psychological, Feminist, and Decolonial Perspectives

Given the ambiguous and complex nature of ‘Heart of Darkness’’s meaning, the work has given rise to various interpretations, including psychological, mythological, feminist, decolonial, and deconstructivist critiques. Here, we will focus on psychological, feminist, and decolonial critiques, with particular emphasis on the “representation of the Other” as revealed in Conrad’s adventure novels.
From the perspective of psychological criticism, the “Other” is interpreted as a repressed alter ego hidden deep within the individual’s psyche. The novel’s physical journey is interpreted as a journey of inner exploration; some critics have viewed this journey as a “journey into the unconscious.” Citing the fact that Conrad and Freud were contemporaries, it has been argued that both emphasized the irrationality of human behavior, which conflicts with traditional views of humanity.
Malo’s voyage up the Congo is interpreted as a kind of “nightmare” that reveals the hidden depths within him, and the darkness of the jungle is likened to the darkness of the dormant unconscious. Malo himself remarks that the “depths of his mind” seem to be revealed the further he travels toward the inland trading posts, and he feels that the further upstream he goes, the more he is moving toward a state that predates history and civilization. It is a sensation that the deeper he ventures into the wilderness, the closer he gets to a pre-civilized state.
However, this primitivism is not unique to Africa. Marlow, reflecting that the savage frenzy he witnessed along the riverbank is “not entirely unrelated” to himself, gradually feels that he, too, is becoming assimilated into those savage customs. Whether it is the moment he sets out to capture the fugitive Kurtz and identifies the sound of his own heartbeat with the savages’ drumbeats, or the moment he resolves to grow old in the jungle, Marlow abandons the civilized way of thinking and moral values instilled by Europe.
The other Europeans Marlow encounters are no exception. Figures such as the stationmaster’s uncle—who argues that, since anything is possible in Africa, anyone who stands in the way of business should simply be hanged—also reveal their savage nature. Above all, Kurtz, who ran the trading post in the interior, exemplifies this cultural betrayal most strikingly. The skulls displayed on stakes around the trading post and the “midnight dance ending in an unspeakable ritual” he presided over demonstrate that even an intellectual armed with moral reasoning is powerless to resist when inner evil manifests.
According to this novel, the reason an individual can survive by subduing evil—or at least appearing to subdue it—is not due to some inherent, unshakable resilience. Marlow views principles and morality as nothing more than rags that fly away or light chaff blown by the wind once they are shaken violently.
To Marlow, the individual in the civilized world is like a dilapidated ship adrift at sea. The reason this dilapidated ship—which could sink into the world of evil at any moment—is able to hold out without sinking immediately is because it has twin anchors. Marlow calls these twin anchors “the police” and “the butcher.” What these two have in common is that they not only guarantee the individual’s survival but also institutionally prevent blood from staining his hands.
Marlow also points out that the gaze of neighbors—who watch our every move and whisper among themselves—is equally important. In a moment of absolute solitude, when no police officer is watching; in a moment of silence, when there is no friendly neighbor’s warning voice to whisper what others might think; in a moment of absolute stillness—how could you possibly imagine where a person’s unfettered footsteps might lead them, into some primeval realm? Thus, he argues, it is these seemingly trivial things that are truly important.
Malraux’s argument clearly demonstrates just how precarious the existence of a civilized person is. He contends that an individual is able to live as a civilized person not because of long-term education, religious faith, convictions, or innate morality, but solely because of the presence of watching police and neighbors. In other words, if these external restraints disappear, civilization can easily collapse.
It is in this same context that Malo, upon returning to Brussels, felt disgust and contempt upon seeing people caught up in their daily routines. As someone who has come to realize the existence of evil within, he is enraged by “the stupidity of failing to see the danger right before one’s eyes and instead strutting in its presence.” What Malo discovers in the Congo is precisely the dark inner world of civilized people.
Mallo also said, “Isn’t the human mind capable of anything—everything, every future and every past, is all there.” This statement brings to mind Carl Jung’s collective unconscious; the “every past” referred to here resembles the collective memory accumulated by humanity over many generations. That memory includes primordial causes, as well as the murderous impulses and instincts that once governed primitive humans.
From this perspective, Marlow’s journey to the Congo is akin to a journey into the unconscious of individuals and groups—an unconscious that has long been suppressed by the reason and laws of the civilized world. Ultimately, Marlow comes to realize that no matter how highly civilized a person may be, they are powerless to stop the inner evil when it erupts.
This is also why Marlow took a particular interest in Kurtz in the Congo. Kurtz was a man whose birth and education were shaped by all of Europe, and Marlow was curious to see how such an exceptional individual would cope with the outbreak of evil. However, the Kurtz that Marlow discovered had already transformed into a demon-like being who reveled in horrific rituals.
Kurtz’s “cultural defection” or “return to primitivism” was already well advanced; even after being rescued by the white men and transferred to a steamship, he flees back into the jungle. The desire to indulge in barbaric customs refuses to let go of this European intellectual. If a figure like Kurtz exists, the transformation that the white protagonists in ‘The Outpost of Progress’ will undergo when they find themselves alone, cut off from the protection of civilization, becomes all the more evident.
That said, Conrad’s view of humanity is not entirely bleak. While his works flash with cynical insights into the evil hidden deep within human nature, they also reveal a profound compassion for humanity. In Conrad’s view, human beings are lonely creatures cast into a fundamentally hostile universe.
To endure the hardships of life, Conrad urges lonely individuals to form relationships in which they rely on one another. He called this “a sense of solidarity,” a concept he made particularly clear in the preface to ‘The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’’. The author viewed art as ultimately appealing to “the latent feeling of fellowship with all beings,” describing this feeling as “a sense of solidarity that weaves together countless lonely hearts.”
There is something in Conrad’s depiction of Africa and its darkness that goes beyond a mere representation of exoticism. Psychologistic criticism seeks to identify Freudian and Jungian motifs of the unconscious, while feminist criticism focuses on how women are portrayed in Marlow’s account of his expedition.
The women who appear in the novel fall into two broad categories. The first consists of white women: the lady in Brussels (who arranged a job for Marlow), the two female clerks at the Brussels firm, and Kurtz’s fiancée. The second category comprises the militantly dressed Black women encountered in the African interior.
Marlow’s assessment of women is starkly revealed in his commentary on the “dear” lady. He satirizes how far women are from the truth, noting that they live in their own beautiful world and that if women were to build a world, it would collapse before the sun even set on the first day.
While this passage may appear at first glance to hold women in high esteem, it actually embodies the very ideology that 19th-century British society used to exclude women from the political and economic spheres and confine them to the home. In other words, the logic is that since women lack the mental capacity to handle worldly affairs, they should be exempt from the obligation to participate in the outside world.
Marlow’s assessment that the two female clerks in Brussels are unsuitable to manage the European branch of the Congo enterprise, as well as his lie to Kurtz’s fiancée about his final words at the end of the novel, can both be understood through this same logic. Mallow judges that Kurtz’s fiancée cannot bear the dark truth, so he lies to her out of consideration, allowing her to continue living in a “beautiful world.”
In this respect, Conrad’s novel—like other adventure novels popular in the late 19th century—contributes to reproducing strict gender roles: men as adventurers in a harsh world, and women as domestic helpers waiting for men’s safe return home.
However, women in the work are not portrayed solely as fragile beings in need of protection. The exact opposite—an image of wickedness and power—also appears, though this image is primarily limited to depictions of racial and geographical others.
For example, to Marlow, who is heading to Africa, this foreign continent appears like a street woman soliciting customers. It seems to smile, frown, and seduce, whispering—both majestically and vulgarly—“Come and find out for yourself.” Marlow soon realizes that Africa’s allure is not merely sensual.
The deeper Marlow penetrates into the African interior, the more Africa—personified as a woman—takes on a bestial and demonic form. The depiction of Africa surrounding the white protagonist is similar in other works. The surrounding wilderness approaches them, enveloping them in a way that is both irresistibly intimate and repulsive, gently pulling them in.
In ‘Heart of Darkness’, in particular, the image of this terrifying beast evolves over time into that of a vampire. When describing Kurtz’s moral transformation, Marlow even likened their relationship to a destructive, carnal bond between a vampire and his pampered favorite.
Marlow describes it this way: as the wilderness caressed his head, he lost his strength and became a captive; as the wilderness caressed him, he loved and embraced it; it seeped into his veins like wine, sapping his body, and sealed his soul with an unimaginable demonic ritual. Ultimately, he became the wilderness’s pampered child.

Conrad and the Feminization of Africa

The narrative that contact with Africa forces Europeans to make enormous moral sacrifices did not first appear in Conrad’s texts. This type of discourse is a common trope found in the popular adventure novels of the late nineteenth century, and that tradition originated in earlier European travelogues and missionary journals from Africa, as well as anthropological and archaeological literature.
The Black woman Malo encounters on the upper Congo River is presented as an image embodying Africa’s savagery and demonic nature. Applying Edward Said’s argument, the representation of Africa in Conrad’s text clearly illustrates sexism as one of the ideological tactics colonialism employed to justify itself.
In other words, by “feminizing” non-European peoples and the “foreign” continent, Europe was able to “lean on” a patriarchal ideology that romanticized male domination of women as natural, thereby justifying colonial rule. In this regard, Conrad’s African novel reflects contemporary European thinking on gender and race and is inextricably linked to European colonialism.

Critical Debate: Defense and Criticism

Decolonial criticism surrounding this novel has sparked an unusually high level of controversy, with opinions sharply divided between supporters and critics. This is inevitable because contradictions can be found even in Conrad’s own assessments of the Congo and colonialism.
For example, in a letter dated July 22, 1896, to his friend and publisher Fisher Unwin, Conrad wrote, “It is a story of the Congo. All the anguish I then felt and the curiosity I had as to the meaning of what I had seen, the anger of my false humanitarianism, accompanied me while I wrote,” sharply pointing out that the Belgian king’s rule over the Congo Free State was a fiction masquerading as humanitarianism. On the other hand, in a letter dated December 31, 1898, to William Blackwood, he also stated, “that criminally inefficient and mean egoism which accompanies the attempt to civilize out there is a justifying thought,” revealing an attitude that condones the inefficiency and selfishness of the civilizing mission.
Historically speaking, Leopold II convened a conference in Brussels in 1876 under the pretext of “extending the hand of civilization to the only region on Earth not yet penetrated by Christianity, in order to pierce the darkness enveloping its entire population.” As a result, the International African Society and the International Congo Society were established, but both became Leopold’s private organizations. Following the Berlin Conference of 1884, the Congo became Leopold’s personal kingdom in 1885, and he retained his rule until 1908.
From 1891 to 1894, fierce battles raged in the Congo between Leopold’s army and Arab slave traders. Although this war was waged under the pretext of eradicating the inhumane slave trade, it actually resulted in Leopold eliminating his main competitors among the slave traders and establishing an even more brutal system of control. Statistical evidence supports the claim that Leopold’s tyranny—involving forced labor, torture, forced relocation, and massacres related to ivory collection and rubber extraction—reduced the Congo’s population by half over the course of approximately 25 years.
Conrad’s defenders argue that ‘Heart of Darkness’ actually served to expose European racial prejudice. According to these critics, the characters of the chief accountant, the stationmaster and his uncle, and above all, the depraved figure of Kurtz, starkly reveal just how incompetent and inhumane Leopold’s traders operating along the Congo River were.
In ‘The Outpost of Progress’, Conrad also bitingly satirizes the disconnect between the ideals espoused by European colonialism and its actual practices by depicting the white protagonists, Kayer and Carlier, as dysfunctional figures within the trading post. Early in the novel, European colonialism—which is obsessed with conquering the globe—is also criticized through the words of Marlow, who points out that “it usually involves seizing land from people whose skin color is different from ours or whose noses are a bit flatter; so, when you look deeply into the reality of it, it is by no means a pleasant sight.”
Furthermore, defenders argue that while it is true that racial discourse depicting Africa and Africans as barbaric can be found in Conrad’s work, it is unfair to expect a single author to be completely free from the racist culture that pervaded European society as a whole in the late 19th century. They contend that since the cultural tradition to which he belonged was inherently racist, it would have been difficult for him to completely break free from that background.
A leading critic of Conrad is the Nigerian writer and critic Chinua Achebe. Having attended a missionary school in Nigeria under British colonial rule, Achebe sharply criticized the European “masterpieces” he read as a child. Achebe confesses that when he read African literature, “I did not recognize myself as an African. I sided with the white man fighting the savage… I thought I was on the side of the white man who embarked on hair-raising adventures and narrowly escaped danger.”
As Franz Fanon analyzed, due to the so-called “whitening of consciousness,” Black people who received a Western education end up belittling their own culture and identity. Achebe diagnosed these adventure novels as deceptive devices that “whitened” Black readers, and through his novel ‘Things Fall Apart’, he attempted to correct the portrait of Africa painted by Europe.
Achebe offers a more direct critique of ‘Heart of Darkness’. While acknowledging that Conrad’s primary concern was not Africa itself but the psychological struggles of a European left alone, Achebe argues that the core of the problem lies in the dehumanization fostered over many years by the image of Africa as a metaphysical battlefield—an image from which the human element of Africans has been excluded. Therefore, when asked whether a novel that dehumanizes Africa and Africans can be called a great work of art, Achebe’s answer is a resounding “No.”
A notable point regarding Achebe’s criticism is that, regardless of Conrad’s purpose in writing ‘Heart of Darkness’, he deleted or altered a significant portion of the reality he witnessed in the Congo from the text. For example, the Boma region visited by Conrad and his fictional character Marlow was, at the time of the author’s visit, a site of modernization where various government offices and military barracks were being constructed and shops and hotels were springing up. However, Conrad boldly omitted this modern landscape from his text and reconstructed it as a dark, savage space that both tempts and threatens civilized people.
This “politics of omission” is also evident in the way the novel addresses the practice of cannibalism in Africa. As seen in the scene where the Black sailors Malo hires on his journey inland express a desire to eat the natives attacking the steamship, discourse on cannibalism recurs throughout the work. This point is also noted in the writings of Jeffrey Myers, a biographer of Conrad.

The Depiction and Context of Cannibalism

A significant number of the 30 Africans were cannibals. While Conrad was still in Matadi, Tadeusz remarked jokingly, “Unless you end up skewered and barbecued, I’m sure we’ll hear from you before long.” Although Conrad’s journey upriver was not as dangerous as Marlow’s, the cannibals posed a very real threat. When asked if he ate human flesh, one African replied, “Oh, if only I could eat all the people on this earth.”
Thus, not only in Conrad’s novel but also in the works of his biographers, human flesh is presented as a regular item on the Congolese diet. While it is true that some Congolese practiced cannibalism, this fact must be understood within the context of the war between the Arab slave traders and King Leopold. According to Patrick Brantlinger, not only the armies of the Arab slave traders but also Congolese soldiers serving in King Leopold’s army ate human flesh. For some Congolese tribes, cannibalism was also a traditional ritual associated with war; at the same time, it served as a form of psychological warfare designed to instill fear in the Arabs, who believed that one could only enter paradise if one’s body remained intact.
However, this practice of cannibalism as a war ritual during the conflict between the Arab slave traders and King Leopold receives almost no contextual explanation in Conrad’s novel. As Brantlinger argues, by deliberately erasing the very existence of the Arab slave traders, Conrad was able to reduce the complex triangular relationship between the Arab slave traders, the Congolese, and King Leopold to a simple dichotomy between African and European civilizations.

Conrad’s Perception of Colonialism and Irony

It is an undeniable fact that Conrad distanced himself from the colonial policies implemented by Leopold II. At the same time, it is equally undeniable that Conrad distinguished British colonialism qualitatively from that of other European empires. It is in this context that the target of ridicule in “The Outpost of Progress” is limited to Belgian colonialism. “Heart of Darkness” clearly reveals the author’s attitude of reserving a “special place” for the British Empire.
There was a vast red area on the map; knowing that real business was being conducted there, it was always a pleasant place to look at. Then there was a damn big blue area, a few green areas, and some orange areas that looked as if they’d been smudged on here and there; and on the east coast, there was a purple area indicating that cheerful pioneers of progress were merrily downing delicious lager. But I wasn’t headed for those areas. I was headed for the area marked in yellow.
Needless to say, the red areas on the map refer to British colonies. In contrast to these regions where “real business is being done,” the colonies of other empires are disparaged or ignored in a mocking tone. For example, France’s colonies are denounced as “damn big, heavily colored” areas; Italy’s and Portugal’s colonies are dismissed as merely “a bit of green” or “as if smeared here and there”; and Germany’s colonies are belittled as places where people simply enjoy beer, lacking any serious intent. Conrad sometimes expressed views that justified colonialism as an “ideal” or a “commitment to efficiency,” and while he criticized the ugly aspects of European colonialism, he was unable to completely distance himself from the racial discourse prevalent in Europe at the time. As a result, ironically, his early message—intended to criticize European colonialism and racism—became subject to criticism that it was, in fact, racist itself.