A psychoanalytic reading of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness reveals the inner journey of a man immersed in the horrors of human evil. In one scene Marlowe connects with the natives who are fending off a supposed attack by creating a ruckus. “They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity—like yours—the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly. Yes, it was ugly enough; but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself that there was in you just the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspicion of there being a meaning in it which you—you so remote from the night of first ages—could comprehend” (Conrad part II). He admits that somewhere within his subconscious there is a sense of recognition of the self, a primordial collective consciousness (Ivonin). When he realizes that the cannibals in his employ are probably getting hungry, he looks at the people through their eyes. “I perceived—in a new light, as it were—how unwholesome the pilgrims looked, and I hoped, yes, I positively hoped, that my aspect was not so—what shall I say?—so—unappetizing: a touch of fantastic vanity which fitted well with the dream-sensation that pervaded all my days at that time” (Conrad part II). Cannibalism falls into the category of taboos in western culture that may be forbidden partly because “we have a deep and primitive desire to do it” (Schutt). It is interesting that Marlowe is hoping he looks more appetizing, perhaps revealing an inner need to be desired that has not been fulfilled as some sort of displacement mechanism (Freud).

A feminist reading of these same passages reveals completely different possibilities. When Marlowe hears the natives howling in the jungle, he does not even conceive of the fact that women might be a part of that great cacophony. It is a plea from one man to another, a negotiation between men. From Marlowe’s patriarchal perspective, no women would be a part of that age-old discussion because he envisions women on the sidelines in their huts caring for their children. The reality is that any of those cries could be resounding from women or men; he has no way of knowing (Tyson). The “wild and passionate uproar” is as much a female cry as male (Conrad part II). As concerns the cannibals, women are once again left out of the discussion, but Marlowe has been away from any female sexual attention for a long time at this point. Perhaps any attention would be welcome, even from male cannibals. It could be that Marlowe is subconsciously forgetting gender assignments for a moment and thinking simply as a human (Rich). He may not even realize how desperately he wishes for someone to want him in this terrifying jungle.

It seems on a cursory reading that a psychoanalytic reading would reveal the most information because Marlowe is sharing his inner thoughts and opening the door to deep digging into his psyche. There is little mention of women in the piece, so most of the feminist critique will come from a place of absence. However, what little is said of women is prime for analysis because Marlowe’s observations are so clearly dismissive and fearful of women in a way that would be interesting to flay.      

Works Cited

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. The Project Gutenberg EBook. 2 March 2018, www.gutenberg.org/files/219/219-h/219-h.htm

Freud, Sigmund. “The Interpretation of Dreams.” Rivkin, Julie; Ryan, Michael. Literary Theory: An Anthology, 3^rd edition. Wiley Blackwell.

Ivonin, Leonid; Chang, Huang-Ming; Diaz, Marta; Catala, Andreu; Chen, Wei; Rauterberg, Matthias. “Traces of Unconscious Mental Processes in Introspective Reports and Physiological Responses.” Plos One. 13 April 2015, doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0124519

Lois Tyson – Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide, 2nd ed., 2006.

Rich, Adrienne. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence” Onlywomen Press, 1980, users.uoa.gr/~cdokou/RichCompulsoryHeterosexuality.pdf

Schutt, Bill. Eat Me: A Natural and Unnatural History of Cannibalism. Welcome Collection, 2019.