The Duality of "Heart of Darkness"

Duality is prevalent in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. It can be seen with the characters Marlow and Kurtz. Kurtz is Marlow’s doppelganger; his double. This is illustrated by the opposite ways in which Marlow and Kurtz react to the wilderness:

“Both men are subjected to a moral test; by means of their reaction the resemblance and the basic difference between them are made clear. Forced by the wilderness to recognition of his kinship with primitive man, and granted the opportunity to gratify his primitive lusts to their absolute full, Kurtz succumbs completely. Forced to the same recognition, “what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity—like yours—the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar,” and granted something of the same opportunity, Marlow does precisely the opposite, does not succumb, does not “go ashore for a dance and a howl.” When he finds Kurtz fled away from the boat, gone to rejoin the native orgies, he feels a “moral shock... as if something altogether monstrous, intolerable to thought and odious to soul, had been thrust upon me unexpectedly.” The intensity of Marlow's revulsion in this scene may well be the result of recognizing the overwhelming pull of savagery—which could pull him into similar excesses—for in Kurtz's action he sees what is possible.... Feeling the same temptation, understanding Kurtz's actions, Marlow deliberately chooses a different course, “An appeal to me in this fiendish row—is there? Very well; I hear; I admit, but I have a voice, too, and for good or evil mine is the speech that cannot be silenced.”” (The Ultimate Meaning of Heart of Darkness)

Kurtz loses all morals to the wilderness whereas Marlow does not give in to primitive lusts. However, Marlow is tempted, and that is why he is haunted by Kurtz. Kurtz represents complete savagery, lack of strength, and darkness – all things that Marlow is trying to combat and make sense of. Kurtz’s existence causes Marlow to question himself. When Marlow catches him trying to escape back to the savages, he says “I before him did not know if I stood on the ground or floated in the air,” (149). He says that Kurtz’s soul had “gone mad” and that “I had…to go through the ordeal of looking into it (Kurtz’s soul) myself,” (150).By examining Kurtz’s soul, Marlow has to examine his own soul as well.

Another example of duality can be seen between the two women in Kurtz’s life. They could also be said to be doppelgangers of each other – opposite but at the same time akin.

“They are in a sense opposites; one the embodiment of primitive darkness:

savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent; there was something ominous and stately in her deliberate progress... the immense wilderness... seemed to look at her... as though it had been looking at the image of its own tenebrous and passionate soul.... Suddenly she opened her bared arms and threw them up rigid above her head... and at the same time the swift shadows darted out on the earth... gathering the steamer into a shadow embrace... the barbarous and superb woman... stretched tragically her bare arms after us over the somber and glittering river.

The other, the embodiment of light:

all the sad light of the cloudy evening had taken refuge on her forehead. This fair hair, this pale visage, this pure brow, seemed surrounded by an ashy halo... her fair hair seemed to catch all the remaining light in a glimmer of gold... She put out her arms... stretching them back and with clasped pale hands across the fading and narrow sheen of the window... resembling in this gesture another one, tragic also... stretching bare brown arms over the glitter of the infernal stream, the stream of darkness. ” (The Ultimate Meaning of Heart of Darkness)

Although the images of these two women are contrasting, there still exist similarities – stretching their arms, their love of Kurtz, and their beauty.

By drawing connections between Marlow and Kurtz, and the savage woman and the Intended, Conrad gives the impression that perhaps the lines that separate darkness from light, savagery from civilization, and right from wrong – are not always so clear.

The narrative style of the story is also an example of duality in Heart of Darkness. The story opens with one anonymous narrator but most of the novel is really told by Charlie Marlow. This creates a kind of meta-narrative that further adds to the ambiguity and duality in the story. It also distances the author from the narrator, allowing Conrad to explore these themes more deeply without total rejection from his working class, imperialistic audience.

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