Critic's Comment Response


In response to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness one critic wrote, "We scream at the 
wilderness…and the wilderness screams back. There's a tension and at that point of tension 
we resolve our nature." Our scream at the wilderness is a barbaric yawp that leaves our body 
with reckless abandon drawing out with it our hidden self. The wilderness answers with its 
own subtle temptations sent out to lure us into following the animalistic law of kill or be 
killed. After the temptation comes the moment of truth; the moment where we choose between 
the savageness of nature and the savageness of civility. 

This critic was absolutely correct in his translation of one of the many hidden truths 
masked within the complexities of Heart of Darkness. Man will raise a shout for many 
reasons such as fear, love, hate, discovery, frustration, joy, and many others. Any of 
these can become the catalyst that will lead to the point of tension, the point of no 
return. Once we reach that point, we will be confronted with the decision to embrace our 
own heart of darkness or turn our back on it. Conrad shows this temptation of nature in 
this excerpt: "I tried to break the spell - the heavy, mute spell of the wilderness - that 
seemed to draw him to its pitiless breast by the awakening of forgotten and brutal 
instincts, by the memory of gratified monstrous passions." (107) Here, Kurtz has already 
passed his moment of tension and has chosen to let his savage nature loose on the world. He 
is caught by the allure of satisfying his greed, lust, and thirst for power. He has tasted 
the fruit of the tree and never wants to return to his old world, his world of rules and 
laws that will not allow him to expose his dark longings. "…I felt so sure they could not 
possibly know the things I knew. Their bearing…was offensive to me like the outrageous 
flauntings of folly in the face of a danger it is unable to comprehend." (113) Here Marlow 
is walking through the "sepulchral city" after his moment of tension. He has been to the 
edge and back, willing his way past his enigmatic desires, pulling himself through nature's 
temptations, and wearily forging a path through the wilderness and back to civilization. 
Marlow saw how dark the human heart could be and he turned his back on it. He looks at the 
people walking around in their blissful ignorance and knows that they have no idea what is 
in their hearts or the hearts of the people around them. His experience has removed his 
blinders and has provided him with a unique puzzle piece to the big picture of life. He now 
sees the world in a new light and he is forever changed by his journey into the heart of 
darkness.