Throughout its entirety, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness utilizes many contrasts and paradoxes in an attempt to teach readers about the complexities of both human nature and the world. Some are more easily distinguishable, such as the comparison between civilized and uncivilized people, and some are more difficult to identify, like the usage of vagueness and clarity to contrast each other. One of the most prominent inversions contradicts the typical views of light and dark. While typically light is imagined to expose the truth and darkness to conceal it, Conrad creates a paradox in which darkness displays the truth and light blinds us from it.
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.
“The sky, without a speck, was a benign immensity of unstained light” (Conrad 2). By using wording such as “benign” and “unstained”, it paints a picture in one’s mind of a kindly, pure environment. Since the story begins here, it seems as though the tale has begun in the light, and accordingly, honesty, and as the day progresses will descend into darkness and thus falsehood. As Marlow begins to speak, he contemplates the history of the land around him. “Light came out of this river since-you say knights? Yes; but it is like a running blaze on a plain, like a flash of lightning in the clouds. We live in the flicker-may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday” (Conrad 3). He speaks of our world as a “flicker”, a twinkle in the “darkness” that was present before our civilization arose. T...
... middle of paper ...
...re”. While his Intended pines for Kurtz in his absence, his Mistress longs for the heavens and freedom. While they are interconnected in some ways, Kurtz’s Intended and his Mistress represent physically the paradox of light and dark, in that two people so similar might behave and think so differently.
As Marlow assists the reader in understanding the story he tells, many inversions and contrasts are utilized in order to increase apperception of the true meaning it holds. One of the most commonly occurring divergences is the un orthodox implications that light and dark embody. Conrad’s Heart of Darkness brims with paradoxes and symbolism throughout its entirety, with the intent of assisting the reader in comprehending the truth of not only human nature, but of the world.
Works Cited
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. New York: Dover Publications, 1990. Print.
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.
Beckoning readers closer, the gloomy foreboding of a mysterious darkness has typically been indicative of an antagonist or a horror that is to follow, and the glory of a shining light has signified a positive connotation. The pair is often utilized to express an author’s ideas and theme and Joseph Conrad uses the two paradigms liberally in his interpretation of European colonialism in Heart of Darkness. While Conrad employs the typical binary of light and darkness as positive and negative forces, respectively, he also challenges this notion by exposing the contradictions of misdeeds done in light and the portrayal of darkness as a sanctuary.
In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, something is always contrasted against something else. Within the title itself, the contrast of light and dark is made. Throughout the book, the contrast is made between good and evil, between the pilgrims and the cannibals that Marlow encounters. Using the ironic opposition of the pilgrims and the cannibals will present a way into a post-colonial analysis of the book.
Asking the right questions is indeed an art form . It is however an even bigger burden to try to answer from an analytical presepective these subjective questions which inspire answers and explanations to the ultimate “why” and “how” . As readers we are obligated to carry with us an open mind, an analytical eye and room for suggestive arguments when trying to dissect a piece of writing. Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness offers the perfect platform for interpretation. With a dozen shades of foggy gray's, the short story is begging for a set of eyes that can see it through. Without proceeding too far into the novella, one can draw out a great deal of analytical suggestions as to what the title itself implies. The word Darkness seems to be a consistent theme throughout the book. So much so, that the amount of weight it carries has given it a special place on the cover. Many critics have found common ground on deciphering the interpretation of the word .The concept of darkness could be respresenting evil. However, some significant subjective questions remain unaswered: Exaclty which character in the novella has fallen victim to this evil? Is it Conrad himself, Marlow, Kurtz or the natives? All of them? Are there different forms in which this evil can manifest itself? Is it talking about darkness in the literal or figurative sense? Would we be considered naïve if we thought evil could be contained or is darkness a necessary evil we all posses and an undeniable part of our reality?
Heart of Darkness is Joseph Conrad's tale of one man's journey, both mental and physical, into the depths of the wild African jungle and the human soul. The seaman, Marlow, tells his crew a startling tale of a man named Kurtz and his expedition that culminates in his encounter with the "voice" of Kurtz and ultimately, Kurtz's demise. The passage from Part I of the novel consists of Marlow's initial encounter with the natives of this place of immense darkness, directly relating to Conrad's use of imagery and metaphor to illustrate to the reader the contrast between light and dark. The passage, although occurring earlier on in the novel, is interspersed with Marlow's two opposing points of view: one of naïveté, which comes before Marlow's eventual epiphany after having met Kurtz, and the matured perspective he takes on after all of the events leading up to his and Kurtz's encounter.
Conrad uses light and dark imagery to help create the setting for the story; light represents civilization while darkness suggests the uncivilized. The novel opens on the deck of a boat called the Nellie, as we are introduced to the passengers we are told how the sun is slowly fading, and soon darkness will engulf the area. This image is Conrad?s first use of light and darkness; he uses it to foreshadow the ultimate darkness Marlow will face. Conrad is warning his readers to be careful, lest they let down their guard and allow the darkness to come them. The other character in the book, Kurtz, is taken over by the evil embodied in the darkness. During Kurtz?s journey into the heart of darkness the isolation, darkness and power all made him lose control of himself and allowed the darkness to take over.
Conrad, Joseph. "Heart of Darkness." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams et al. 6th ed. vol. 2. New York: Norton, 1993. 1759-1817.
In my paper, titled, The Dark and Light, the dark and light imagery in the novella Heart of Darkness, will be described as a demonstration of how much the this imagery is portrayed, and how this it was so significant in the novella. Throughout Heart of Darkness, Conrad uses a plethora of simple colors, objects, and surroundings to convey multilayered images and ideas. These numerous symbols and events in the story have a more in-depth meaning, and are extremely important throughout the story.
Without personal access to authors, readers are left to themselves to interpret literature. This can become challenging with more difficult texts, such as Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness. Fortunately, literary audiences are not abandoned to flounder in pieces such as this; active readers may look through many different lenses to see possible meanings in a work. For example, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness may be deciphered with a post-colonial, feminist, or archetypal mindset, or analyzed with Freudian psycho-analytic theory. The latter two would effectively reveal the greater roles of Kurtz and Marlow as the id and the ego, respectively, and offer the opportunity to draw a conclusion about the work as a whole.
The realism movement of the late nineteenth century produced works in literature that were marked by reduced sentimentality and increased objectivity. The goal was to let details tell the story, and remove noticeable bias of the author through scientific and detailed descriptions. While this form of storytelling undoubtedly is most accurate, it creates difficulties for authors to incorporate their themes into the story. This resulted in an increase in symbolism in realist works. The objects and descriptions within the story are the author’s vehicle for displaying the values and themes of the work. Light and darkness are symbols commonly used in literature, and have held specific symbolic meanings for hundreds of years. Simply stated, light commonly symbolizes good, while darkness symbolizes its antithesis - evil. (Cooper) For centuries light vs. dark has been quite possibly the most common symbol in all literature. In Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad uses detail to create a feeling that transcends the literal text - most notably through his use of light and dark and the inversion of their traditional meanings. The end goal of this inversion is the establishment of the theme that not everything is as it seems. More specifically, Conrad uses detailed imagery of light and dark to show often times white men can be more savage than the natives.
Conrad, Joseph. “Heart of Darkness.” Norton Anthology of British Literature. 7th Edition. Vol. B. Ed. M. H. Abrams, et. al. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001.
Watts, Cedric. 'Heart of Darkness.' The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad. Ed. J.H. Stape. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. 45-62.
Comparisons and contrasts are important devices which an author may use to help convey his thoughts and feelings about a situation or an event. Joseph Conrad makes use of these devices in his novel Heart of Darkness. Throughout the novel when he was trying to convey a deeper meaning about a situation or a place, he would us a comparison or contrast. The comparative and contrasting themes in the story help to develop Conrad's ideas and feelings in the Heart of Darkness. Light verses dark, the Thames verses the Congo, the Savages compared to the civilized people, and the darkness of both worlds are all contrasts and comparisons that are important to the meaning as well as the understanding of this novel.
From the very beginning of Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad traps us in a complex play of language, where eloquence is little more than a tool to obscure horrific moral shortcomings. Hazy, absurd descriptions, frame narratives, and a surreal sense of Saussurean structural linguistics create distance from an ever-elusive center, to show that language is incapable of adequately or directly revealing truth. Understanding instead occurs in the margins and along the edges of the narrative; the meaning of a story “is not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze” (105).
Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is a great example of a Modernist novel because of its general obscurity. The language is thick and opaque. The novel is littered with words such as: inconceivable, inscrutable, gloom. Rather than defining characters in black and white terms, like good and bad, they entire novel is in different shades of gray. The unfolding of events takes the reader between many a foggy bank; the action in the book and not just the language echoes tones of gray.