Question+7

There is a group of men Marlow meets and travels with whom he describes as "pilgrims." Since they are never explicitly defined or described, what can be inferred about them and their goals? Start with what little we are told about them.

The term "pilgrim" generally refers to one who is embarking on a journey to an unfamiliar land for a religious or meaningful purpose. Conrad uses parallelism to show the pilgrims are making a voyage for something they consider to be sacred. "They wandered here and there with their absurd long staves in their hands, like a lot of faithless pilgrims bewitched inside a rotten fence. The word 'ivory' rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed. You would think they were praying to it. A taint of imbecile rapacity blew through it all, like a whiff from some corpse" (Part I). This quote starts with "They wandered", which is ironic because pilgrims have a set goal and a planned journey, they are in no sense "wandering". Next, Conrad uses a paradox by calling them "faithless pilgrims". From this, the reader can infer that these men are shameful, indecent people. This sentence ends with "bewitched inside a rotten fence". The reader gains a sense of evil from this phrase since these men are described as hexed prisoners. Marlow goes on to explain that the word "ivory" was all throughout the air, as if they were praying to it. Now, one realizes that these men are possessed by the ivory. They worship this tusk and are almost in a trance over it. Their overall goal is to attain this substance; for they will journey or make a "pilgrimage" to foreign land just to retrieve what they believe to be sacred item.

Because they are described as "faithless pilgrims" you can infer that they are set to wander but have no ultimate destination like a true pilgrim. The word faithless in this description shows that they are wandering to a foreign land but are disreguarding what the reader knows about a pilgrimage. Because they have no final destination in mind when they set out on their journey it can be assumed that "pilgrims" are searching for something in the journey itself and not what they plan on reaching. Also, when thinking of what we consider to be a traditional pilgrim most people most think of a religiously baised journey. However, in contrast to what the readers idea of a pilgrim is the "pilgims" in Heart of Darkness are on a journey for an idea tha consumes them and replaces their sense fo religion with a sense of unchecked wanting. Their obsession with ivory is the singular purpose of their journey through Africa, which seperates the "faithless pilgrims" from the traditional ones. EB.