Analysis Of Conrad 's The Heart Of Darkness

    Within the text of Heart of Darkness, the reader is presented with many metaphors. Those that recur, and are most arresting and notable, are light and dark, nature and Kurtz and Marlow. The repeated use of light and dark imagery represents civilization and primitiveness, and of course the eternal meaning of good and evil. However, the more in depth the reader goes the more complex it becomes. Complex also are the meanings behind the metaphors of nature included within the text. It represents a challenge for the colonists, often also signifying decay and degeneration. Finally Kurtz and Marlow represent imperialism and the colonists. All these metaphors come together and contribute not only to

Imperialism is the domination by one country of the political, economic, or cultural life of another country. It occurred in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth century. Nationalism had produced strong, centrally governed nation-states. The Industrial Revolution had made economies stronger as well, with growing need for raw resources that continental European countries didn’t have. During this time, European industrialized nations became more aggressive into expanding into other lands. Despite the massive gains in land and resources, because of the economic and humanitarian costs, in the eyes of the conquerors, imperialism wasn’t justified.

    Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness portrays an image of Africa that is dark and inhuman.  Not only does he describe the actual, physical continent of Africa as “so hopeless and so dark, so impenetrable to human thought, so pitiless to human weakness” (Conrad 94), as though the continent could neither breed nor support any true human life, but he also manages to depict Africans as though they are not worthy of the respect commonly due to the white man.  At one point the main character, Marlow, describes one of the paths he follows: “Can’t say I saw any road or any upkeep, unless the body of a middle-aged negro, with a bullet-hole in the forehead, upon which I

Chinua Achebe, a well-known writer, once gave a lecture at the University of Massachusetts about Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, entitled "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness." Throughout his essay, Achebe notes how Conrad used Africa as a background only, and how he "set Africa up as a foil to Europe,"(Achebe, p.251) while he also "projects the image of Africa as 'the other world,' the antithesis of Europe and therefore of civilization."(Achebe, p.252) By his own interpretations of the text, Achebe shows that Conrad eliminates "the African as a human factor," thereby "reducing Africa to the role of props."(Achebe, p.257)

Imperialism is when one country or nation that is larger the others take over smaller countries for their land and natural resources. But when European Imperialism came to Africa many new, good things were introduced. When new medicines came to Africa, African people could live longer healthier lives. When European government was brought, new laws were established to protect the unprotected and the weak. When public education came, many native Africans became literate and smart. Thus, Imperialism is justifiable. .

   The novella Heart of Darkness has, since it's publication in 1899, caused much controversy and invited much criticism. While some have hailed it's author, Joseph Conrad as producing a work ahead of it's time in it's treatment and criticism of colonialist practices in the Congo, others, most notably Chinua Achebe, have criticized it for it's racist and sexist construction of cultural identity. Heart of Darkness can therefore be described as a text of it's time, as the cultural identity of the dominant society, that is, the European male is constructed in opposition to "the other", "the other" in Heart of Darkness being defined as black and/or female. Notions of cultural

Limited in their ability to represent the character’s conditions without explicit statements, authors cannot elucidate each event and character’s thought while continuing to hold the reader’s attention. Therefore, many authors utilize the landscape of the story to parallel a character or group of characters. In Heart of Darkness, author Joseph Conrad personifies the landscape as a fluid character. Consequently, as the reader begins to further comprehend the landscape’s meaning, Marlow’s understanding of the people around him becomes more clear. Likewise, Cormac McCarthy, in his novel The Road, utilizes the ashy remains of the forest to parallel the destruction of society due to the apocalyptic event. Both Joseph

    Literature is never interpreted in exactly the same way by two different readers. A prime example of a work of literature that is very ambiguous is Joseph Conrad's, "Heart of Darkness". The Ambiguities that exist in this book are Marlow's relationship to colonialism, Marlow's changing feelings toward Kurtz, and Marlow's lie to the Intended at the end of the story.

There is an abundance of literature in which characters become caught between colliding cultures. Often, these characters experience a period of growth from their exposure to a culture that’s dissimilar to their own. Such is the case with Marlow, Joseph Conrad’s infamous protagonist from ‘Heart of Darkness’. Marlow sets off to Africa on an ivory conquest and promptly found himself sailing into the heart of the Congo River. Along the way he is faced with disgruntled natives, cannibals, and the ominous and foreboding landscape. Marlow’s response to these tribulations is an introspective one, in which he calls into question his identity. This transcending of his former self renders the work as a whole a

Joseph Conrad, author of Heart of Darkness, intriguingly uses an unnamed narrator in his novel that clearly becomes of importance right away in the introduction. Conrad’s narrator chooses to speak of the historical period in which Roman colonization took over what we now know as Great Britain. By connecting a Roman colonization story to one almost 2000 years later talking about the Belgians in Africa, Conrad reveals one of his own themes in the novel. He proposes that the Romans ' and Belgians ' barbarous colonization methods are completely corrupt and it seems as though Conrad draws a clear connection to the two periods while hoping this major key to later tellings of the novel is picked up by the readers. Roman colonization easily foreshadows this story because of all the similarities. In the novella, Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad uses the Roman colonization of Great Britain which is able to foreshadow later events of the Belgians and the Congo Free-State.

The two major themes of Heart of Darkness are the conflict between “reality” and “darkness,” and the idea of restraint and whether or not it is necessary. Conrad’s passage describing the restraint of the hungry cannibals exemplifies both themes:  It describes how reality shapes human behavior, and contrasts the characters of Kurtz and Marlow.  “Reality,” as it is used here, is defined as “that which is civilized.”

Inherent inside every human soul is a savage evil side that remains repressed by society. Often this evil side breaks out during times of isolation from our culture, and whenever one culture confronts another. History is loaded with examples of atrocities that have occurred when one culture comes into contact with another. Whenever fundamentally different cultures meet, there is often a fear of contamination and loss of self that leads us to discover more about our true selves, often causing perceived madness by those who have yet to discover their own self.  Joseph Conrad’s book, The Heart of Darkness is a story about Man’s journey into his self, the discoveries to be made there and about

    Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is full of oppositions.  The most obvious is the juxtaposition of darkness and light, which are both present from the very beginning, in imagery and in metaphor.  The novella is a puzzling mixture of anti-imperialism and racism, civilization and savagery, idealism and nihilism.  How can they be reconciled?  The final scene, in which Marlow confronts Kurtz's Intended, might be expected to provide resolution.  However, it seems, instead, merely to focus the dilemmas in the book, rather than solving them.

In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Marlow and Kurtz are two different types of competing heroes; each of the characters has strong ideologies. There is the classic European hero, at least at that time, taming the natives, the Congolese people, and exploiting them by “forced labor.” This “hero” is Kurtz. Marlow resembles more of a traditional hero in more of today’s terms. He is tough, diligent, and an independent thinker. Although he doesn’t really “save the natives, he does start to see them more than just savages, he sees them as people.

    Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness portrays an image of Africa that is dark and inhuman.  Not only does he describe the actual, physical continent of Africa as "so hopeless and so dark, so impenetrable to human thought, so pitiless to human weakness" (Conrad 94), as though the continent could neither breed nor support any true human life, but he also manages to depict Africans as though they are not worthy of the respect commonly due to the white man.  At one point the main character, Marlow, describes one of the paths he follows: "Can't say I saw any road or any upkeep, unless the body of a middle-aged negro, with a bullet-hole in the forehead, upon which I