“Heart of Darkness” and the Memory of the Holocaust

In the last few decades, this chapter argues, “Heart of Darkness” has become relevant to our memory and understanding of the Holocaust. Continuing along the path opened by Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, works such as Exterminate All the Brutes by Sven Lindqvist, The Rings of Saturn by W. G. Sebald, and the historical essay King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild have used Conrad’s novella to explore the relation between Nazi and colonial violence. The renewed impact of “Heart of Darkness” brings to the fore ethical and epistemological concerns that are key to postcritical thinking: it raises, in particular, questions on interpretation—is there a privileged site for the production of meaning?—and on the work of, and the relation between, the critic and the historian.