A Homosexual Heart of Darkness?

“Masculinity, Modernity, and Homosexual Desire”
by Andrew Michael Roberts
p.455-462

A discourse concerning the contrast between male and female roles regarding power and knowledge runs through Conrad’s works.
- themes of “knowledge, truth, and ignorance” (455)
- men: “empowering knowledge”
- women: “symbolic, psychic, and social exploitation of women;” women as “symbols of a mysterious truth” but not the everyday, important one; “concept of femininity constructed as the Other of male knowledge” (455)
- this view is maintained by ignoring the clear counterexamples of certain women
- Conrad also uses some criticisms of this view by “inviting the reader to empathize with women characters” at certain points (455)

The pair of women and pair of men in Heart of Darkness are complementary figures.
- Kurtz, Marlow
- the African woman, the fiancée
- the men represent “the powerful, knowing, speaking male subject of knowledge” (456)
- the women represent “1. The ignorant; 2. The known, the object of knowledge; 3. The unknowable”
- the African woman does not talk
- the Intended is excluded from knowledge my Marlow

The author of this article does not think that the book is about colonialism; instead, he argues, the vague and never-specified truth at the center of the novel is an “empty signifier … representationally vacant.” (456) This means that the novel is actually about something never clearly stated – such as the “homophobic discourse which treats same-sex desire as something which cannot be spoken of.” (457)

Is there more meaning to the lie that Marlow makes to the Intended at the end of the story?
- Yes, according to “the linguistic, symbolic, and emotional excesses of the passage” (457)
- by telling her a lie, Marlow excludes the Intended from some important knowledge that seems almost a secret society
- “desire between men which excludes women from a secret knowledge” (458)
- further: the hierarchy of male-male and male-female relationships has functioned “through the setting up of powerful barriers between sexual and other forms of inter-male relationships” (458)
- women are “objects of exchange” that maintain the barrier mentioned above by channeling male desire (458)
- descriptions of Kurtz’s fiancée place her at the same level as Kurtz’s ivory, effectively making her an object and part of “an economy of repressed same-sex desire” (462)
- another argument: Marlow projects his love for Kurtz onto the Intended:
- “women are used to deny, distort, and censor men’s passionate love for one another” (457)

A homosexual interpretation of Heart of Darkness can be seen through the intense relationship between Kurtz and Marlow.
- Marlow thinks they share a “secret knowledge” (458)
- “metaphors of transgressing a boundary” (458)
- Marlow’s obsession with Kurtz and his “‘unspeakable rites’” (458); see quotes p. 459
- Kurtz’s actions are described in “distinctively sexual overtones.” (459)
- Kurtz is described with many adjectives and phrases that connote mystery, evil, hunger, lust, and finally horror.
- What is it that he has done that is so terrible? Most of his murdering and brutality can be written off as normal behavior for those colonizing Africa.
- Marlow is willing to discuss cannibalism, human sacrifice, and witch magic, but still leaves some mystery around Kurtz that implies things to horrible to discuss.
- “what Kurtz has done is precisely the non-specified or unspeakable” (460)
- In addition, Marlow’s description of “horror” towards dark Africa is masked horror for “Marlow’s own feelings for Kurtz” (460).

The entire story is centered on the bonds between men.
- Marlow tells the story to a group of trusted male friends.
- The story is about an “enduring intimacy” with another man and the “sharing of a disgraceful yet exciting knowledge” with that man that even his fiancée cannot know about (460).

The author of the article says that the text is not completely dominated by these homosexual themes; to ignore them, however, would be to oversimplify the book and take it merely at face value.
- idea of “doubling” (461)
- Marlow thinks he has almost become Kurtz
- seen especially in sections about how Kurtz has given everything up (see quotes p.461)


The author concludes that the homosexual undertones can be seen through the lens of the time’s horror of homosexuality and focus on staid, conservative values.