Has LOTRs been compared to ❤️ of Darkness (by Joseph Conrad)?

[Eljorahir]

Just curious:

Did Tolkien ever read "Heart of Darkness" or acknowledge Joseph Conrad?

Have you ever read of anyone comparing elements within LOTRs to elements within Heart of Darkness?

If you've read Heart of Darkness, can you think of any commonalities within the two stories (even if only in a superficial sense)?

 

[Vorondil]

Haven't read Heart Of Darkness, but I can think of 1 similarity: they're both books.

Sorry, I just had to say it.

 

[Eljorahir]

It's been a few days since I started this thread and no one's biting. (Sorry Aethelwulf, your post doesn't count as a bite. 🙂 )

So, the reason I asked the questions in the original post is because I noticed the words "heart of the darkness" in the Lothlorien chapter and that brought to mind some commonalities between the Tolkien and Conrad stories:

In Lothlorien Haldir speaks to Frodo and Sam atop Cerin Amroth a few days before their journey by boat begins: “In this high place you may see the two powers that are opposed one to another; and ever they strive now in thought, but whereas the light perceives the very heart of the darkness, its own secret has not been discovered. Not yet.”

The story, "Heart of Darkness", by Joseph Conrad includes a journey by boat on a river, arrows shot at the boat along the way, an encounter with a beautiful woman who holds her arms high above her head on the riverbank as the boat departs the scene, an encounter with a madman, the death of the madman, and the body of the madman being carried downstream in the boat. All of these things occur, to some extent, in both Heart of Darkness and The Lord of the Rings.

If you haven't read Heart of Darkness, maybe you've seen the movie "Apocalypse Now" which was based (somewhat) on this book.

I'm not sure if anyone other than me will find this interesting. If you do find it interesting, please refer back to the questions in the original post. I'd like to hear from you.

 

[Olorgando]

The story, "Heart of Darkness", by Joseph Conrad includes a journey by boat on a river, arrows shot at the boat along the way, an encounter with a beautiful woman who holds her arms high above her head on the riverbank as the boat departs the scene, an encounter with a madman, the death of the madman, and the body of the madman being carried downstream in the boat. All of these things occur, to some extent, in both Heart of Darkness and The Lord of the Rings.

If you haven't read Heart of Darkness, maybe you've seen the movie "Apocalypse Now" which was based (somewhat) on this book.

I haven't read Conrad's book, but I just took a look at the Wikipedia article on it. What I do have, and have watched (more than once) is the 2002 "Redux" version of Coppola's "Apocalypse Now", at 3 hrs 22 min the longest "edition" (the later "final cut" was shorter).

What puzzles me a bit is your mention of "an encounter with a madman, the death of the madman, and the body of the madman being carried downstream in the boat." After Lothlórien, the only one who might be called - briefly! - a madman is Boromir. Yes, he dies, and is sent downriver - but alone, in a canoe. But the entire journey of the Fellowship on the Anduin had been downriver, while the initial journey, both on Conrad's Congo as well as Coppola's Mekong, is upriver. Both characters named Kurtz - more so Brando's portrayal in the film - seem to me a (weak) equivalent of Sauron, if anybody. And in both versions, Kurtz himself is the "target" of the journey, while Sauron in LotR is the one character the Fellowship (or parts of it) want to stay away from as far as possible.

I just checked the two books that I have that deal in some depth with possible JRRT sources, Verlyn Flieger's 1997 "A Question of Time", and the 2011 collection of essays edited by Jason Fisher, "Tolkien and the Study of His Sources". Conrad's name does not appear in the index of either book, whatever that means.

 

[Eljorahir]

I haven't read Conrad's book, but I just took a look at the Wikipedia article on it. What I do have, and have watched (more than once) is the 2002 "Redux" version of Coppola's "Apocalypse Now", at 3 hrs 22 min the longest "edition" (the later "final cut" was shorter).

What puzzles me a bit is your mention of "an encounter with a madman, the death of the madman, and the body of the madman being carried downstream in the boat." After Lothlórien, the only one who might be called - briefly! - a madman is Boromir. Yes, he dies, and is sent downriver - but alone, in a canoe. But the entire journey of the Fellowship on the Anduin had been downriver, while the initial journey, both on Conrad's Congo as well as Coppola's Mekong, is upriver. Both characters named Kurtz - more so Brando's portrayal in the film - seem to me a (weak) equivalent of Sauron, if anybody. And in both versions, Kurtz himself is the "target" of the journey, while Sauron in LotR is the one character the Fellowship (or parts of it) want to stay away from as far as possible.

I just checked the two books that I have that deal in some depth with possible JRRT sources, Verlyn Flieger's 1997 "A Question of Time", and the 2011 collection of essays edited by Jason Fisher, "Tolkien and the Study of His Sources". Conrad's name does not appear in the index of either book, whatever that means.

Thanks very much for checking the two books.

Just to clarify: I also don't see any common story arc between the two stories. At this point I'm just pointing out the mention of the title words by Haldir and these little snippets of things that are similar between the stories for the next few chapters after the mention of the title. Certainly Boromir had nowhere near the same level of "madness" as Kurtz. However, some level of "madness" (temporary for Boromir) is central to the stories for both characters.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

The only one I'm aware of is a mention in Shippey's Author of the Century, in the course of a discussion of "wraith" -- specifically of "wraithing" as a kind of hollowing out of a character's humanity.

There are ironies in Tolkien, but Conrad was a writer in the ironic mode; where Tolkien was reviving the romance, Conrad was looking at the romance ironically -- from "below" as it were: his protagonists often see themselves as on a romance quest, so we can expect some parallels with the quest-romance plot, but the result turns out to a goal that isn't there; Lord Jim or Nostromo are other examples. We're looking down at them, not necessarily in a moral sense, but from a standpoint of an ideally greater freedom.

 

[Eljorahir]

I think @Squint-eyed Southerner mentioned something about authors building resonances within their stories for the benefit of the readers’ experience. For me, this passage in Heart of Darkness resonates with the passage from LOTRs.

The occupant(s) of the boat(s) in both stories seem to be having almost a religious experience looking at these two women, the native woman and Galadriel.

Also, there are a few descriptions that seem similar (in bold type):
--Native woman walking on the shore versus Galadriel standing on the banks.
--Both with arms raised over their heads.
--The last we see of both: the gleam of the eyes of the native woman versus Galadriel reflecting the sunlight like a crystal.

Heart of Darkness (Marlow and others on the steamboat watch the woman on the shore):

And from right to left along the lighted shore moved a wild and gorgeous apparition of a woman.

She walked with measured steps, draped in striped and fringed cloths, treading the earth proudly, with a slight jingle and flash of barbarous ornaments. She carried her head high; her hair was done in the shape of a helmet; she had brass leggings to the knee, brass wire gauntlets to the elbows, a crimson spot on her tawny cheek, innumerable necklaces of glass beads on her neck; bizarre things, charms, gifts of witch-men, that hung about her, glittered and trembled at every step. She must have had the value of several elephant tusks upon her. She was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent; there was something ominous and stately in her deliberate progress. And in the hush that had fallen suddenly upon the whole sorrowful land, the immense wilderness, the colossal body of the fecund and mysterious life seemed to look at her, pensive, as though it had been looking at the image of its own tenebrous and passionate soul.

She came abreast of the steamer, stood still, and faced us. Her long shadow fell to the water's edge. Her face had a tragic and fierce aspect of wild sorrow and of dumb pain mingled with the fear of some struggling, half-shaped resolve. She stood looking at us without a stir, and like the wilderness itself, with an air of brooding over an inscrutable purpose. A whole minute passed, and then she made a step forward. There was a low jingle, a glint of yellow metal, a sway of fringed draperies, and she stopped as if her heart had failed her. ... She looked at us all as if her life had depended upon the unswerving steadiness of her glance. Suddenly she opened her bared arms and threw them up rigid above her head, as though in an uncontrollable desire to touch the sky, and at the same time the swift shadows darted out on the earth, swept around on the river, gathering the steamer into a shadowy embrace. A formidable silence hung over the scene.

She turned away slowly, walked on, following the bank, and passed into the bushes to the left. Once only her eyes gleamed back at us in the dusk of the thickets before she disappeared.

Farewell to Lorien:

On the green bank near to the very point of the Tongue the Lady Galadriel stood alone and silent. As they passed her they turned and their eyes watched her slowly floating away from them. For so it seemed to them: Lorien was slipping backward, like a bright ship masted with enchanted trees, sailing on to forgotten shores, while they sat helpless upon the margins of the grey and leafless world.

…Soon the white form of the Lady was small and distant. She shone like a window of glass upon a far hill in the westering sun, or as a remote lake seen from a mountain: a crystal fallen in the lap of the land. Then it seemed to Frodo that she lifted her arms in a final farewell, and far but piercing-clear on the following wind came the sound of her voice singing…

Suddenly the River swept round a bend, and the banks rose upon either side, and the light of Lorien was hidden. To that fair land Frodo never came again.

…their eyes were dazzled, for all were filled with tears.

 

[Olorgando]

Woman on the shore, arms raised ... yes.
But in every other aspect of the descriptions JRRT's is practically the opposite of Conrad's. That is one way of using the "mould of the mind" - turn what's in the mould on its head.

 

[Eljorahir]

Off-topic, but in the same genre of question. Simpler this time:

For those who know the Romeo and Juliet story:
Does the manner of death of Turin and Nienor remind you in any way of the manner of death of Juliet and Romeo?

(Of course, more than: they both ended their own lives.)

 

[Olorgando]

For those who know the Romeo and Juliet story:
Does the manner of death of Turin and Nienor remind you in any way of the manner of death of Juliet and Romeo?

As to your first question (sort of): I hardly know Shakespeare's play (which he pinched, as with everything playing in Italy, from earlier Italian sources).

But as to "The Children of Húrin", he definitely took that (mostly) from the part of the Finnish "Kalevala" titled "The Story of Kullervo". His earliest writings of anything that ended up in his Silmarillion was in fact a circa 1914 re-write of this story while still an undergraduate at Oxford, as Verlyn Flieger shows in her 2015 book of the same title. This predates any writing which ended up in Christopher Tolkien's "Lost Tales" volumes 1 and 2 of HoMe. No need to pinch second-hand stuff from that playwright from Stratford u.A.

 

[Eljorahir]

As to your first question (sort of): I hardly know Shakespeare's play (which he pinched, as with everything playing in Italy, from earlier Italian sources).

But as to "The Children of Húrin", he definitely took that (mostly) from the part of the Finnish "Kalevala" titled "The Story of Kullervo". His earliest writings of anything that ended up in his Silmarillion was in fact a circa 1914 re-write of this story while still an undergraduate at Oxford, as Verlyn Flieger shows in her 2015 book of the same title. This predates any writing which ended up in Christopher Tolkien's "Lost Tales" volumes 1 and 2 of HoMe. No need to pinch second-hand stuff from that playwright from Stratford u.A.

Thanks for the "Story of Kullervo" reference. I've read and reread the Wikipedia summary of the story and am enjoying the similarities with The Children of Hurin.

I've been pondering whether the shared elements between The Story of Kullervo and Children of Hurin demonstrate the same sort of "sharing" I listed above between Heart of Darkness and the LOTRs (between Cerin Amroth and The Falls of Rauros). Still pondering.


And, regarding my previous Romeo and Juliet question:
When I first read the Silmarillion many years ago I immediately thought of these similarities:

Turin falls into a death-like sleep after contacting Glaurung's blood. Juliet falls into a death-like sleep after drinking a potion.

Nienor sees Turin in his death-like sleep and... ... ... ends her own life. Romeo sees Juliet asleep thinking that she's dead and ends his own life.

After Turin wakes up and finds out Nienor is dead he ends his own life. After Juliet wakes up and sees that Romeo is dead she ends her own life.

 

[Olorgando]

And, regarding my previous Romeo and Juliet question:
When I first read the Silmarillion many years ago I immediately thought of these similarities:

Turin falls into a death-like sleep after contacting Glaurung's blood. Juliet falls into a death-like sleep after drinking a potion.
Nienor sees Turin in his death-like sleep and... ... ... ends her own life. Romeo sees Juliet asleep thinking that she's dead and ends his own life.
After Turin wakes up and finds out Nienor is dead he ends his own life. After Juliet wakes up and sees that Romeo is dead she ends her own life.

Interesting - it would be a total reversal of roles if JRRT did actually take it as a model for this specific scene in CoH.

Just a short aside about JRRT's often-quoted "dislike" of Shakespeare. From what I've gleaned in my reading, he thought that the plays did not make for overly enjoyable reading. He seems to have enjoyed some of the plays in versions he saw as a theatrical performances. Those versions that he attended, more than 60, perhaps 65 years ago. What he would have thought of the "modernizations" that have been staged since then ... I'll leave that to the imagination of our TTF members who have attended such stagings ... 😬

 

[Eljorahir]

Not making any new point, just a new observation I thought I'd add to this thread...

I came across another place Tolkien used the key phrase which is the focus of this thread topic: "heart of the darkness".

For reference, repeating from post #3 above:
In Lothlorien Haldir speaks to Frodo and Sam atop Cerin Amroth a few days before their journey by boat begins: “In this high place you may see the two powers that are opposed one to another; and ever they strive now in thought, but whereas the light perceives the very heart of the darkness, its own secret has not been discovered. Not yet.”

Now, my new observation from Unfinished Tales, Of Tuor and His Coming to Gondolin:
Tuor and Voronwe approaching Gondolin enter the tunnel and ...
"But their whispers aroused the sleeping echoes, and they were enlarged and multiplied, and ran in the roof and the unseen walls, hissing and murmuring as the sound of many stealthy voices. And even as the echoes died in the stone, Tuor heard out of the heart of the darkness a voice speaking in the Elven-tongues..."