How Does Marlow Tell The Horror In Heart Of Darkness

“The road to Manderley lay ahead. There was no moon. The sky above our heads was inky black. But the sky on the horizon was not dark at all. It was shot with crimson, like a splash of blood. And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea.”

Spaulding begins her essay with a detailed personal testimony that describes the deep emotional connection she feels for darkness. In part of the second paragraph she states, “the sky and shore and water were all one inky darkness though stars sparkled on the watery surface,” (83). This description of the

Throughout ‘At Mornington’, Harwood uses descriptions, “night fell”, and similes, “the piece of this day will shine like light” when referring to the power of memory. During ‘The Violets’, Harwood uses imagery such as “ambiguous light” and metaphors such as “unreturning light” and “blurring darkness” to portray time’s ability to pass, and the way that you cannot regain time that is lost. During ‘The Violets’, Harwood also uses the metaphor of the “melting west” to represent a closing day, capturing the vivid colours of the natural phenomenon through the use of evocative imagery. Indeed, the second poem of the diptych of ‘Father and Child’ is ‘Nightfall’. These references to darkness, light and the closing of days can all be seen as symbolic of life, death and the transience of time, as when one day ends and night falls, the transience of that moment will be held in one’s memory regardless of the moment never being able to be relived.

The case of Mary Morstan is presented to start on a ‘September evening’. This particular choice of month brings the reader into the cold,foggy and often miserable atmosphere of September. The atmosphere is highlighted by the sentence ‘the day had been a dreary one,and a dense drizzly fog lay low upon the great city.’

Who is "the flabby devil" who is "running the show'? Why is Marlow so frustrated by what he sees in Africa and by the Europeans he meets?

     Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is a story about a man named Marlow and his Journey into the African Congo. By reading the novel and understanding all the imagery Conrad has inserted, we can get a better understanding of the

            Marlow realizes that only very near the time of death, does a person grasp the big picture. He describes Kurtz’s last moments "as though a veil had been rent” (Conrad, 239). Kurtz’s last "supreme moment of complete knowledge” (Conrad, 239), showed him how horrible the human soul really can be. Marlow can only speculate as to what Kurtz saw that caused him to exclaim "The horror! The horror," but later adds that "Since I peeped over the edge myself, I understand better the meaning of his stare... it was wide enough to embrace the whole universe, piercing enough to penetrate all the hearts that beat in the darkness... he had summed up,

He carries this kind and chivalrous thought with him when he visits Kurtz's Intended, and with it in mind cannot bring himself to shatter her beautiful fantasy world by telling her the truth of Kurtz's last words. In his own declaration Marlow claims there is a taint of death in lies. If he had been completely truthful with the Intended and told her Kurtz's actual last words, "The horror, the horror" (Longman 2240), he would have given her more than a taint of death. He would have shared with her some of the mental images his imagination had spawned since he heard those final words. He would have given her a 'flavour of mortality', which he claims to hate and detest in the world. Hate and detest are very powerful words which would

Marlow is the wanderer into the unconscious mind; he is meandering through his deepest understanding of himself. In other words, he is a symbol for the archetype meeting himself in the depths of his unconscious mind. Not only is he initially finding meaning through his encounter with Kurtz but also he is attempting to find meaning through the retelling of his story. Marlow’s voyage ventures “deep into his own personal heart of darkness, where lurks the impulse to savagery that he had never acknowledged while in the deceptive milieu of a sophisticated city” (Spivack 432). Marlow is the principal character through which

At the start of the novella, the reader is faced with the frame narrator’s thoughts, feelings and opinions, which in relation to colonialism are rather optimistic and naïve to the reality Marlow later reveals. The setting is the river Thames, London, where the Nellies narrator says "the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an interminable waterway", going on to say "the biggest, and greatest town on earth", and expressing colonialism as "the dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths". His opinions represent hope, possibility and optimism. This initial description then can be juxtaposed to the end of the novel, after hearing Marlow tale, when he says, the Thames "seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness".

The protagonist Marlow believes that: “the mind of man is capable of anything-because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future” (109). The basis of Heart of Darkness is Marlow's physical journey up the congo river to meet Kurtz. The main character Marlow goes through many physical and psycological changes from the beginning to the end of the story. In the beginning, Marlow is fairly innocent as he goes up the river, he gets closer and closer to Kurtz, and he moves closer and closer he learns more and more about the hearts of men and the darkness. When he eventually reaches Kurtz, Marlow's perception is obstructed and he physically and psychologically, does not know where he is.

    Marlow's oscillation between viewpoints is almost startling in its rapidity. On his very first meeting with the natives of the Congo, he swings from one pole to the other in only a few sentences:

Marlow dwells on the action of the romans that came before him, and relates the Roman conquest of Europe, to the European colonization of Africa. He imagines the hopelessness and death that would surround these camps, as they are literally lost within the country. “Here and there a military camp lost in a wilderness, like a needle in a bundle of hay -- cold, fog, tempests, disease, exile, and death -- death skulking in the air, in the water, in the bush. They must have been dying like flies here. Oh, yes -- he did it (p. 4)”. Marlow uses fog in correlation with “cold, … Tempests, disease, exile, and death” showing how it is as much of a danger towards the people within the military camp as death, disease, and exile. Marlow uses these words together with fog to convey a sense of hopelessness when discussing these military camps, and providing a reason for the reader to associate fog with danger. Marlow using the words “Tempests, …. Disease,” is a intriguing. It shows that the fog is not only related to physical dangers, “cold… exile and death” and integrates additional description words to provide further insight into what the fog at this camp is associated with. It is also associated with natural events, as during the times of the romans it was near impossible to obstruct the forward progress of a storm, or find a solution for

The speaker refers to the night as his acquaintance. This implies that the speaker has a lot of experience with the night, but has not become friends with it. Thus, because even the night, which has been alongside the speaker in comparison to anything or anyone else, is not a companion to the speaker, the idea of loneliness is enhanced. In addition, “rain” (2) is used to symbolize the speaker’s feelings of gloom and grief, because there is continuous pouring of the rain, which is unlikely to stop. In line 3, “city light” is used to convey the emotional distance between the speaker and society. Although the speaker has walked extensively, he has not yet interacted with anyone – thus distancing himself even further from society. Moreover, the moon, in lines 11 to 12, is used as a metaphor of the speaker’s feelings. The speaker feels extremely distant from society that he feels “unearthly.” The idea of isolation and loneliness in this poem is used as the theme of the poem; and the use of the setting and metaphors underscores the idea that the speaker feels abandoned from society.

However, there is another element that must be examined. Marlow’s original statement about lies included one very peculiar statement. He yields the fact that his distain for lies is, “not because I am straighter than the rest of us…” (Heart, pg49). Despite his extremely harsh words, Marlow actually admits to committing the very offense he speaks of. In addition, his reaction later after lying also includes the feeling that, “my heart stood still, stopped dead short by an exulting terrible cry, by the cry of inconceivable triumph and of unspeakable pain.” (Heart, pg123). The “terrible cry…of unspeakable pain” is obviously his distain for his actions, but what about the “inconceivable triumph”? The “triumph” here is successfully avoiding having to tell Kurtz’ intended the truth, because it “would have been too dark.” (Heart, pg123). It seems Marlow is a bit of a hypocrite. He hates lies, yet admits to lying, and also recognizes the triumph when he does. This new revelation, however, does not actually change the fact that Marlow would believe that he shouldn’t have lied; it simply means that that belief wouldn’t necessarily stop him from doing so.