Understanding Heart of Darkness Through Psychoanalysis and Post-Colonial Theory
Introduce literary theory and criticism to your AP Literature students by asking them to consider Heart of Darkness through two critical lenses: psychological and post-colonial!
Help your students practice making inferences and synthesizing by applying the new lens they are learning to what they already know about the text. They will think more deeply about the text when considering the many interesting questions provided in this FREE resource!
Discussing these questions or assigning them as a writing activity or homework assignment encourages students to see the text through a new perspective, consider different sets of beliefs and values, and grasp ways the text is relevant to real-world considerations and different ways of thinking!
You can also use the questions as essay prompts for HoD!
Find ALL of my HoD materials here!
Psychoanalytical Criticism (1930s-Present)
Initially grounded in the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud, whose view that works of literature, like dreams, express secret, unconscious desires, early psychoanalytic critics would seek to explore the text as a manifestation of an author’s neuroses [n. thoughts and behaviors that produce difficulties in one’s life, such as emotional distress, unconscious conflict, and anxiety]. Psychological criticism deals with a work of literature primarily as an expression, in fictional form, of the personality, state of mind, feelings, and desires of its author. For these critics, reading a literary work is a way of experiencing the distinctive subjectivity or consciousness of its author. They investigate the psychology of a character or an author to figure out the meaning of a text.
Modern psychoanalytical critics have come to see literary works as skillfully crafted artifacts that may appeal to reader’s own neuroses by tapping into their own repressed wishes and fantasies; thus, literature accesses the power of the unconscious [n. the irrational part of the psyche, including processes of the mind that occur automatically and are therefore typically unavailable for introspection or consciousness, including patterns of thought, memories, interests, and motivations]. The application of specific psychological principles, such as those of Sigmund Freud’s id, ego, and superego and Jacques Lacan’s imaginary, symbolic, and real, offers a particular portal for analyzing literature. Psychoanalytic criticism may focus on the writer’s psyche, the study of the creative process, the study of psychological types and principles present within works of literature, or the effects of literature upon its readers.
Sigmund Freud
Freud began his psychoanalytic work in 1880s Vienna while attempting to treat behavioral disorders in his patients. He dubbed the disorders ‘hysteria’ and began treating them by listening to his patients talk through their problems. Based on this work, Freud asserted that people’s behavior is affected by their unconscious: “…the notion that human beings are motivated, even driven, by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware…” (Tyson 14-15).
Freud believed that one’s unconscious was influenced by childhood events. He organized these events into developmental stages involving relationships with parents and drives of desire and pleasure where children focus “…on different parts of the body…starting with the mouth…” (Richter 1015). These stages reflect base levels of desire, but they also involve fear of loss (loss of affection from parents, loss of life, etc.) and repression: “…the expunging from consciousness of these unhappy psychological events” (Tyson 15).
Tyson reminds us, however, that “…repression doesn’t eliminate our painful experiences and emotions…we unconsciously behave in ways that will allow us to ‘play out’…our conflicted feelings about the painful experiences and emotions we repress” (15). To keep all of this conflict buried in our unconscious, Freud argued that we develop defenses, such as selective perception, selective memory, denial, displacement, projection, regression, fear of intimacy, and fear of death, among others.
Id, Ego, and Superego
Freud maintained that our desires and our unconscious conflicts give rise to three areas of the mind that wrestle for dominance as we grow from infancy, to childhood, to adulthood:
- The id – “…the location of the drives” or instincts. The id wants instant self-gratification. It can be thought of as the passions.
- The ego – “…one of the major defenses against the power of the drives,” the ego is the part of the psyche that mediates between the desires of the id and the super-ego. It wants to satisfy both the id and the super-ego in a realistic, safe, and beneficial way. Conscious awareness resides in the ego. It helps us organize our thoughts and make sense of them and the world around us. It can be thought of as reason and common sense.
- & The superego – the area of the unconscious that houses judgment (of self and others); it plays the critical and moralizing role, as it reflects the internalization of cultural rules, mainly taught by parents. The super-ego strives to act in a socially appropriate manner. It can be thought of as the conscience.
Sample Psychoanalytical Criticism of Heart of Darkness
The scientist Freud was concerned to analyze logically the seeming illogic, the apparent irrationality, of dreams and, on occasion, of nightmares. Both he and Conrad penetrated into the darkness, the darkness entered into when people sleep or when their consciences sleep, when they are free to pursue secret wishes, whether in dreams, like Freud’s analysands [patients], or in actuality, like Kurtz and his followers. The key word is darkness; the black of the jungle for Conrad is the dark of the sleeping consciousness for Freud.
In still another sense, Marlow, in his trip up the Congo, has suffered through a nightmare, an experience that sends him back a different man, now aware of depths in himself that he cannot hide. The tale he narrates on the Nellie is one he is unable to suppress; a modern version of Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, he has discovered a new world and must relate his story to regain stability. The account is a form of analysis—for him and for Conrad. In a way, it provides a defense against Kurtz’s vision.
—From “Introduction to the Danse Macabre” by F. R. Karl Full Essay
Freudian Analysis Questions:
- Do defenses, such as selective perception, selective memory, denial, displacement, projection, regression, fear of intimacy, or fear of death, appear within the work?
- What does the work suggest about the author’s psychology?
- How can characters’ behavior, narrative events, and/or images be explained in terms of the psychoanalytic concepts of the id, ego, and superego?
- Are there prominent words in the piece that could have different or hidden meanings, and could there be a subconscious reason for the author using these “problem words”?
Archetypal Criticism
In criticism, “archetype” refers to certain narrative designs, character types, or images, which are said to be identifiable in a wide variety of works of literature, as well as within myths, dreams, and even ritual social behavior (like a Mass, for example). The repetition of these archetypes within diverse phenomena supposedly refelcts a set of universal, primitive, and elemental patterns, whose effective embodiment in a literary work evokes a profound response from the reader.
The death-rebirth motif is often said to be the archetype of archetypes. Other archetypal motifs include the heroic journey and the search for a father figure. Archetypal images include the opposition of heaven and hell, the river as a sign of life and movement, and mountains or other high places as sources of enlightenment. Characters can be archetypal as well; some examples are the rebel-hero, the scapegoat, the earth goddess, and the femme fatale.
Carl Jung
Jungian criticism attempts to explore the connection between literature and what Carl Jung (a student of Freud) called the “collective unconscious” of the human race, which is the idea that there are shared structures of the unconscious human mind, like a shared memory bank, or a “…racial memory, through which the spirit of the whole human species manifests itself” (Richter 504).
Jungian criticism, closely related to Freudian theory because of its connection to psychoanalysis, assumes that all stories and symbols are based on mental forms or mythic models inherited from mankind’s past; these are innate to mankind, as their presence in each individual’s mind cannot be explained by anything in the individual’s own life experiences. Many such archetypes exist, such as the snake, the eagle, water, the tree of life, and the wise old man.
Based on his observance of these common archetypes across time, place, and culture, Jung developed the archetypes he called the Shadow, which refers to an unconscious (and often repressed) aspect of the personality, one’s “dark side;” the Anima, the feminine side of the male Self; the Animus, the corresponding masculine side of the female Self; and the Persona, the social face one presents to the world, a kind of mask.
In literary analysis, a Jungian critic would look for archetypes in creative works: “Jungian criticism is generally involved with a search for the embodiment of these symbols within particular works of art.” (Richter 505). When dealing with this sort of criticism, it is often useful to look into mythology and symbolism.
Sample Archetypal Criticism of Heart of Darkness
You are aware, I am sure, that the images of Heart of Darkness are not randomly placed, but are, to a great extent, arranged in patterns of opposition.
There are, for example, things that are dark and things that are light. There are also things that are black and things that are white. Moreover, many of the things that are light or white (the candle held by the Intended in Kurtz’s painting of her or fading light on her forehead as Marlow talks to her) are surrounded by darkness, and many of the things that seem at first glance to belong to the dark or black side of things manage to partake of light and whiteness (Kurtz’s jungle bride is described as glittering and flashing, and Marlow often notices the white eyes or teeth of the black natives—or a bit of white cloth around a black man’s neck).
Similarly, although Europe at the time was generally thought of as the place of light, or enlightenment, and Africa was generally thought of as the place of darkness, Marlow insists that England, too, was once one of the dark places on the earth, and that the African landscape, like Kurtz’s African bride, is often described in images of glittering light. And, along the same lines, don’t forget that the book begins at sunset in the bright Thames and moves into a night so dark that the men on the Nellie can’t see each other.
Along with opposed images such as these, is a more complicated opposition between things that are inside or within and things that are outside—things that are at the heart or center, and things that are at the periphery. We travel from the Outer Station to the Inner Station toward the heart of darkness and then outward again, presumably back toward civilization, just as we travel inward from the outside narrator to Marlow to Kurtz and then outward again until we are left with the image of that outside narrator seeing the whole world as belonging somehow to the realm of darkness. And let us not forget that the unnamed narrator tells us right away that the significance of Marlow’s tales is not, as is typically the case with sailors, inside, like a kernel in a nut, but outside, like a haze around the moon.
–From “Heart of Darkness: A Lawrence University Freshmen Studies Lecture” by Mark Dintenfass
Typical Jungian Analysis Questions:
- Which elements of the text can one connect to Jung’s main archetypes? (Persona, Shadow, Anima, Animus)
- What imagery in the work is symbolic?
- How do the text’s characters mirror archetypal figures? (Great Mother or nurturing Mother, Whore, destroying Crone, Lover, Destroying Angel, Wise Old Man, etc.)
- How does the text’s narrative pattern mirror the archetypal journey?
- Does the protagonist reflect the archetypal hero? How? Does he or she embark on a journey in either a physical or spiritual sense? How do you know?
Sample Psychoanalytical Questions for Heart of Darkness
- Apply Freud’s model of the mind, composed of id, ego, and superego, to Marlow’s journey.
- How is Heart of Darkness a study of human nature in symbolic terms? What might the journey, the river, the jungle, Kurtz, etc. represent?
- What role do dreams and/or nightmare play in an understanding of the novel? (Not necessarily literal dreams, but aspects of the book or characters with dreamlike qualities?
- What is “the horror, the horror” in psychological terms?
- Apply the pattern of the archetypal journey, a grail (grail-less?) quest, to Marlow’s journey to the Heart of Darkness. Pay attention to the descriptions of each stage of Marlow’s journey.
- Discuss archetypal imagery, particularly color, and what it may signify in this novel.
- How does an examination of Marlow as archetypal hero enhance our understanding of the novel? Can Marlow be analyzed productively as any other symbolic archetypal figure?
- What archetypal symbols does Conrad employ, and do the archetypal meanings contribute to an understanding of the meaning of the book?
Post-Colonial Criticism (1990s-present)
History is Written by the Victors
Post-colonial criticism is similar to cultural studies, but post-colonial critics are concerned with literature produced by colonial powers and works produced by those who are or were colonized. Post-colonial critics explore how literature reveals the relationships between colonizers and colonized peoples. Post-colonial theory looks at issues of power, economics, politics, religion, and culture and how these elements work in relation to colonial hegemony [n. western colonizers controlling the colonized].
Therefore, a post-colonial critic might be interested in works such as Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, where he or she might argue that “…despite Heart of Darkness’s obvious anti-colonist agenda, the novel points to the colonized population as the standard of savagery to which Europeans are contrasted” (Tyson 375). Post-colonial criticism also takes the form of literature composed by authors who critique Euro-centric hegemony.
Power, Hegemony, and Literature
Post-colonial critics are often concerned with who speaks for whom. The literary text itself may be examined to determine in what ways, explicitly or allegorically, it may privilege the colonizer or the colonized. The text may also be examined for what it reveals about the operations of cultural difference—the ways in which race, religion, cultural beliefs and customs combine to form individual identity and the world of the literary work.
Post-colonial criticism also often questions the role of the western literary canon and western history as dominant forms of knowledge making. The terms “first-world,” “second world,” and “third world” nations are critiqued by post-colonial critics because they reinforce the dominant positions of western cultures populating first world status. This critique includes the literary canon and histories written from the perspective of first-world cultures. So, for example, a post-colonial critic might question “the canon” because it contains few works written by authors outside western culture.
Moreover, the authors included in the canon often reinforce colonial hegemonic ideology. Western critics might consider Conrad’s Heart of Darkness an effective critique of colonial behavior. But post-colonial theorists and authors might disagree with this perspective: “…as Chinua Achebe observes, the novel’s condemnation of European is based on a definition of Africans as savages: beneath their veneer of civilization, the Europeans are, the novel tells us, as barbaric as the Africans. And indeed, Achebe notes, the novel portrays Africans as a pre-historic mass of frenzied, howling, incomprehensible barbarians…” (Tyson 374-375).
Typical questions:
- How does the literary text, explicitly or allegorically, represent various aspects of colonial oppression?
- What person(s) or groups does the work identify as “other” or stranger? How are such persons/groups described and treated?
- What does the text reveal about the politics and/or psychology of anti-colonialist resistance? What forms of resistance against colonial control does the text address, and how does it address them?
- What does the text reveal about the operations of cultural difference—the ways in which race, religion, cultural beliefs, and customs combine to form individual identity—in shaping our perceptions of ourselves, others, and the world in which we live?
- How does the literary text reinforce or undermine colonialist ideology through its representation of colonialization and/or its inappropriate silence about colonized peoples? (Tyson 378-379)
- How did the experience of colonization affect those who were colonized while also influencing the colonizers?
- How did colonial education and language influence the culture and identity of the colonized, and how did Western science, technology, and medicine change existing knowledge systems?
- What are the emergent forms of postcolonial identity after the departure of the colonizers? To what extent has decolonization (a reconstruction free from colonial influence) been possible? Should decolonization proceed through an aggressive return to the pre-colonial past?
Cultural Studies & Post-Colonial Theory Questions for Heart of Darkness
- How do the language, characters, and events of the novella reflect the current events of the late 1800s?
- How does Conrad interpret and present these events, and what role does his own cultural background play in the way that he does this?
- Does his presentation support or condemn the events? Can it be seen to do both?
- How does black and white imagery in the text both reinforce and subvert racial attitudes?
- How does the portrayal of “civilized” and “primitive” cultures both reinforce and subvert racial attitudes?
- How does the comparison of the Thames and the Congo relate to a discussion of race?
- Compare how Africans and Europeans are portrayed in the novella. Look at power structures—who has power, and how is that power maintained? Who is condemned? Who is admired? Which cultural beliefs and practices are admired, and which are condemned?
- To what extent does Marlow return to Britain physically and mentally altered from his colonial experiences?
- Is there a possibility for resolution in the societies Conrad presents? Do any of Conrad’s characters exhibit a high moral standard? If so, what kinds of characters stick to their principles?
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