For decades, Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness has been appreciated, studied, and speculated upon. Indeed, as a work of literature, the novella can be considered as one of the finest of the modern era not only because of it aesthetic value but also due to its underlying meanings. Many have speculated as to what the whole story means, what the characters, objects, and events represent, and what message the story is conveying. In the tradition of analyzing stories, this paper holds that the Marlow’s voyage to retrieve Kurtz is not a voyage per se but acts as an allegory to three journeys: one journey towards hell, another towards back in time, and lastly as a voyage towards one’s own psyche.
Why is Marlow’s mission, or the ship’s voyage for that matter, a journey towards hell? Literally speaking, the journey is not towards hell but towards the jungles of Africa, where Kurtz was to be retrieved by Marlow. However, when one takes into account the setting, one can almost see that Marlow’s mission is not simple nor is it safe. With this fact, the journey towards the jungle becomes hell in two ways. Firstly, it is hell in the sense that the African jungle serves as a dark and foreboding setting. In the initial part of the story, Marlow likens Britain’s perception of Africa to that of what was probably ancient Rome’s impression of untamed Britain. Marlow describes a young Roman as to had “Land in a swamp, march through the woods, and in some inland post feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round him – all that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men.” Thus from this excerpt, readers can see that Marlow and his companions are seemingly banished into a place tha...
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...where laws are absent and men are free to exercise their will even if at the expense of others. Secondly, it is a journey back in time where man returns to the primitiveness that was predominant before modernity. And last is that it may be a journey towards the inner self. In a place devoid of civilization and all the laws and norms that it imposes, man resurrects the savage under its skin. Nonetheless, allegorical meanings of the journey are not confined into these three interpretations alone. As beings endowed with the gift to analyze things and see them according to what our minds or hearts want to see, there is no limit to the meaning that Marlow’s traveling may come to provide. For each person, the voyage may come to symbolize different meanings and these meanings in turn may come to reflect our own nature. It us just a matter of how we perceive this journey.
Heart of Darkness is a kind of little world unto itself. The reader of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness should take the time to consider this work from a psychological point of view. There are, after all, an awful lot of heads and skulls in the book, and Conrad goes out of his way to suggest that in some sense Marlow's journey is like a dream or a return to our primitive past--an exploration of the dark recesses of the human mind.
As Marlow tells his story we see and understand the situations Marlow faced. In his first encounter with the tribes men, Marlow steps into a "gloomy circle of some inferno", where dark figures surrounded him. He compares this incident with that of a massacre, the starving and wasting bodies lying in "confusion". Marlow then encounters a young black boy with a piece of white cotton string tied around his neck. This simple piece of string symbolizes the young boy's innocence. Shortly after Marlow offers the boy a biscuit, another one of the shapes approaches the river , crawling, and drinks of the water. Marlow could not stand the sight of the suffering any longer. It was as though he felt what they were feeling and just when he was willing to help, he stands up and walks away. The path where Marlow meets those that had traveled to an unknown land, and walked uncertain of where they where but sure of what they wanted, started here.
...s of the jungle, which sought to swallow him whole like the snake devouring its prey, sending it deeper within its body digesting it by stripping it of its layers one by one, paralleling the snake-like qualities of the river that drew Marlow deeper and deeper into its dark nothingness. And just like the Ancient Mariner, who is doomed to tell his tale for the rest of his life for the sake of penitence, Marlow, too, seems to retell his story of the tragic loss of innocence, of death and rebirth. Regardless of how many times the story had been told before it got to the narrator who eventually transcribed the events, it is one of great importance. It tells us that we must not judge a book by its cover, regardless of how convinced we may be of what is inside.
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is a novel about a man named Marlow and his journey into the depths of the African Congo. Marlow is in search of a man named Kurtz, an ivory trader. Though Marlow?s physical journey seems rather simple, it takes him further into his own heart and soul than into the Congo. The setting, symbols and characters each contain light and dark images, these images shape the central theme of the novel.
The more simple comparison is that between Marlow and a quester. Marlow’s apparent ‘quest’ stems from his childhood interest in maps and exploring the unknown. Though the “...blank spaces on the earth” were later explored, he still took curiosity to the Congo River. He decided he wanted to take a steamboat for trade on it, almost impulsively as he described, “[t]he snake had charmed me”. Being younger and with
Throughout the entire novella, Joseph Conrad uses simple events to describe significant dark and light imagery. As the story begins, a man named Marlow describes his journey into the depths of the African Congo. He is in search of a man name Kurtz who is an ivory trader. His experiences throughout his journey are physically difficult to overcome. However, even more complex, was the journey that his heart and mind experienced throughout the long ride into the Congo. Marlow’s surroundings such as the setting, characters, and symbols each contain light and dark images that shape the central theme of the novel.
Marlow is the raconteur of Heart of Darkness, and therefore is one of the more crucial characters within the plot. He embodies the willingness to be valiant, resilient, and gallant, while similarly seeming to be cautiously revolutionary. He is, seemingly the epitome of bravery, going into the jungle. Marlow’s voyage is, in essence, a “night journey into the unconscious, the confrontation with an entity within the self” (Guerard 38). The ominous coast is an allegory for the idea of the unconscious mind. “Watching a coast as it slips by the ship […] there it is before you—smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage, and always mute with an air of whispering” (1...
The novel, Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, is literally about Marlow’s journey into the Belgian Congo, but symbolically about the discovery of his heart and soul during his journey, only to find that it is consumed by darkness. He realizes that the man he admired and respected most, is really demonic and that he may be just like him. He is able to come to this realization however, before it takes the best of him.
The two main characters in Heart of Darkness, Marlow and Kurtz are used to show the true nature of man, that is, the capacity for good and evil within humanity. The central character is a thirty two year old sailor, Charlie Marlow. Marlow is the primary narrator in the novel, therefore his thought’s, opinions, experiences and revelations, shape the entire novels themes and the value system put forward. Marlow illustrates how forces of light and darkness serve to weave the human soul together; thus, essentially how good and evil are reflected in an individual. This is particularly important regarding the construction of Marlow, who is essentially a biased narrator, and a product of his European upbringing. An example is his inability to deal with the dying natives at the “grove of death”, offering a native a biscuit as an apparent kind gesture. Yet this is only due to him not being confronted with situations like this previously where his own values, and the whole premise behind colonialism, the exploitation is revealed. The patriarchial views of women he displays also outline the background of Marlow and the a...
In the eyes of the universe, Earth is but a microscopic dot of blue mass. The peculiarity of the lived experience is that on this dot, there can exist societal differences as enormous as the universe itself. In Heart of Darkness, Marlow departs the Western World and dives into the heart of Africa, as if traveling from one end of the universe to the other. Marlow’s calling to Africa is driven by an innate hunger for adventure. By the end of the novel, however, Marlow’s frivolous curiosity is overwhelmed by disillusionment with the alternative civilization he discovers. In this coming of age tale, Marlow’s growth is defined by a loss of narrow minded innocence that develops into a conflicted understanding of the universe.
Marlow starts out as just as everyman, trying to put some bread on the table. His original plans were setting out to make money, but his journey turns into so much more. His expedition turns into a quest to find and save Kurtz, and to understand the people so many were prejudice against.
Initially, the story endorses the conventional views of Western society, exhibiting light as a positive and reassuring presence without truly comprehending the truth it reveals. Before Marlow begins his story, the sky around the boat he reclines on is full of light.
In Joseph Conrad's novel, The Heart of Darkness, Charlie Marlow narrates the story of his journey into the dark continent, Africa. Through his experiences he learns a lot about himself and about the nature of mankind. He discovers that all humans have the capability within themselves to do good or evil. Outside circumstances substantially influence which path a human will take. Marlow travels not only through the darkness of Africa, but also through the darkness of the human soul.
One interpretation of Marlow's relationship to colonialism is that he does not support it. Conrad writes, "They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now,-nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom" (p. 27-28). Marlow says this and is stressing that the so-called "savages", or Africans, are being treated and punished like they are criminals or enemies when in fact they never did anything. He observes the slow torture of these people and is disgusted with it. Marlow feels sympathy for the black people being slaved around by the Europeans but doesn't do anything to change it because that is the way things are. One can see the sympathy by the way that he gives a starving black man one of his biscuits. "To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire, with no moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe" (p. 54). This statement by Marlow conveys that he doesn't believe that the Europeans have a right to be stripping Africa of its riches. He views the Jungles of Africa as almost it's own living, breathing monster.
... to a man's soul. Marlow's journey was not only into the heart of Africa, but also into the heart of Kurtz where he realizes the truth of colonialism and the potential evil it entails.