Heart of Darkness written by Joseph Conrad is dramatic tale of an arduous trek into the darkest part of Africa at the turn of the twentieth century. The story follows the protagonist Marlow, an English marine merchant, as he travels through the African jungle up the Congo river in search for a mysterious man named Kurtz. Through Marlow's narration, Conrad provides a searing indictment of European colonial exploitation inflicted upon African natives. Through his use of irony, characters, and symbolism in the novel, Conrad aims to unveil the underlying horrors of colonialism. By shedding light on the brutality of colonialism in Heart of Darkness, Conrad shows that European values have been irrevocably eclipsed by darkness.
The true meaning of irony stems from when a concrete idea is twisted, morphed, and turned on its head in a dramatic fashion. Conrad uses this definition of irony in Heart of Darkness to expose the true nature of colonialism being cynical of the entire process. His portrayal of the character Kurtz is just one example of Conrad using irony to denounce the European ideals of the time. Kurtz morphs from a highly respected ivory gatherer to a savage. Leading agent of the company in gathering ivory, he sends more ivory than all of the other agents combined. He is regarded as a “prodigy. . .an emissary of pity, and science, and progress. . .[a] guidance for the cause intrusted to us by Europe. . .” (33). As the novel progresses, the method in which the ivory is delivered to the company becomes abnormal. It is being sent down river in canoes piloted by savages being lead none other than by Kurtz himself. He comes to the station he would eventually command with savages at this beck and call to gather ivory, b...
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...tion as he makes the physical journey into the “heart of darkness” of the British Empire, that Marlow is making a psychological journey into the “heart of darkness” of his own conceived and accepted self being.
In Heart of Darkness, Conrad employs symbols to further denounce Europe's imperialist society. A symbol for the negative effects of the institution of the colonialism is the manager. An arrogant, uncaring, corrupt man, he symbolizes the arrogance of the European's during the start of the twentieth century. Like the European power, the manager is well settled in a position of power due to the fact that he controls all the stations. Marlow states that the manager has “triumphant health in the general rout of constitutions is a kind of power in itself” (28). The good health the manager possess symbolizes the height the British empire held during that time.
Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness uses character development and character analysis to really tell the story of European colonization. Within Conrad's characters one can find both racist and colonialist views, and it is the opinion, and the interpretation of the reader which decides what Conrad is really trying to say in his work.
Throughout Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad points to the hypocrisy and horrors associated with colonialism. The half-English, half-French Kurtz is the main vehicle used to convey his theme of European colonialism, as “all [of] Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz” (Conrad 164). It was Kurtz who goes to Africa for the "sake of loot, and thus becomes a great literary symbol for the decadence of colonialism" (Zins 63). With his help, Marlow dissects the reasoning behind colonialism, eventually seeing its evil nature.
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.
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 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.
In Conrad's Heart of Darkness Marlow, the main character, symbolizes the positiveness of Imperialism. Marlow, as a character realizes the evil that negative Imperialism has caused and decides it is truly unnecessary. When Marlow states, "I had got a heavenly mission to civilize you," he expresses his good intentions to help the Africans progress and advance. Furthermore, when he says, "I was an impostor," Marlow recognizes the fact that he is an invader into a foreign land, yet he sticks to his moral values.
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...
Heart of Darkness - The Changing Personality of Kurtz Kurtz's character is fully facet (in Conrad's Heart of Darkness), not because of his conventional role as antagonist, but because of his role in historical fiction as a character with important role in society, influenced by those close to him. Kurtz makes some key developments in the way he interacts with others, in large part due to the words and actions of society and Kurtz's acquaintances. Heart of Darkness is a novel based on European imperialism in the late nineteenth-early twentieth century. During the turn of the century in 1900, the most significant countries in Europe (i.e. England, France, Germany, et al.). had gotten to a point where expansion within Europe was no longer foreseeable, so for financial, political, and egotistical reasons, these countries looked south to their neighbor Africa, the "black continent.
Civilization is not as advanced as first assumed. Joseph Conrad asserts this disheartening message in his novel, Heart of Darkness. The novel follows a European man reliving his journey to the Congo through story telling to his shipmates. Through Marlow’s journey, Conrad reveals the stark contrasts between European civilization and African savagery. Heart of Darkness explores the struggles of different societies with an intention to expose the weaknesses of a complicated imperialistic ideal.
Every story has a plot, but not every story has a deeper meaning. When viewed superficially, Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is a tragic tale of the white man's journey into the African jungle. When we peel away the layers, however, a different journey is revealed - we venture into the soul of man, complete with the warts as well as the wonderful. Conrad uses this theme of light and darkness to contrast the civilized European world with the savage African world in Heart of Darkness.
In Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness the story of Marlow, an Englishman travelling physically up an unnamed river in Africa and psychologically into the human possibility, is related to the reader through several narrational voices. The primary first-person narrator is an Englishman aboard the yawl, the 'Nellie', who relates the story as it is told to him by Marlow. Within Marlow's narrative are several instances when Marlow relies upon others, such as the Russian, the brickmaker and the Manager at the central station, for information. Therefore, through complicated narrational structure resulting from the polyphonous account, Conrad can already represent to the reader the theme of the shifting nature of reality. As each narrator relates what is important to them, the audience must realise that each voice edits, absents information and is affected by their own experiences and the culture and ideology within which they judge and respond. Therefore the text reveals itself as non-essentialist. It is also seen through the narratorial voices, who are all significantly European males, although challenging the received view of imperial praxis as glorious and daring, a racist and patriarchal text, which eventually, through Marlow's own assimilation of the ideology of his time, reinscribes and replicates that which it attempts to criticise: European action in Africa.
"Heart of Darkness , which follows closely the actual events of Conrad's Congo journey, tells of the narrator's fascination by a mysterious white man, Kurtz, who, by his eloquence and hypnotic personality, dominates the brutal tribesmen around him. Full of contempt for the greedy traders who exploit the natives, the narrator cannot deny the power of this figure of evil who calls forth from him something approaching reluctant loyalty."[1]
The opening discussion in "Heart of Darkness" between Marlow and his friends, is about an idealistic imperialism of conquerors, especially English, who were "bearers of a spark from the sacred fire"-the fire of civilization (1428). Marlow once too had "tingled with enthusiasm" at the thought of imperialism, as his friends do during their recollection of the past, but that was before his experience in the Congo, where he uncovers the crudeness of the Belgians. Imperialism, to Marlow, is not alw...