Heart of Darkness
For most of his young life, Joseph Conrad has had a burning desire to be a seaman; and in 1874, when he is just sixteen years of age, his dream becomes a reality. In addition, he worked his way up through the ranks and piloted a merchant ship up the mighty Congo River in central Africa. Later, it is the memory of this voyage that provides him with the first hand details for writing his most famous novel HEART OF DARKNESS, and these memories spring to life as Marlow , the main character, replaces Conrad in the story. A feeling of darkness is everywhere and it causes the reader to feel surrounded by it. This motif causes the reader to see the darkness in his surroundings, to experience the dark deeds of man, and to recognize the darkness of man's mind.
HEART OF DARKNESS presents a story within a story, and at the beginning , we find Marlow, along with three friends, on board a small ship which is anchored near the mouth of the Thames River in London. When the unnamed narrator, uses words like gloom, black, and brooding repeatedly, it becomes evident that darkness is unfolding as a motif. The following example first gets the reader's attention:
"The air was dark above Gravesend, and farther back seemed condensed into a mournful gloom, brooding motionless over the biggest, and the greatest , town on earth."
While they wait for the tide to turn, the men become lost in their own thoughts until Marlow seizes the opportunity to tell his friends about his life as a seaman. He tells them of his fascination with Africa and how he longs to explore it. When he describes the Congo as " an immense snake uncoiled with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country, and its tail lost in the depths of the land" a sense of dark mystery is felt by the reader, and as he continues , all kinds of negative information await him. He is next met with a tale of a man hanging himself because of the terrible heat.
Then he experiences the painful stabbing of flies and the groans and misery of the sick and dying. Fifteen days later , he describes his arrival at Central Station as hobbling in to an area of back water bordered by smelly mud.
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.
The voyage into the "Heart of Darkness" is told to us through the eyes of Charlie Marlow. As Marlow is aboard the "Nellie" he tells his story of expedition and growth. The men on the boat sit still yet bored. Marlow is like an old man sharing a story of his childhood, that for himself may be of great significance, and lead to a lesson, but the children yearn to hear a story of magic, castles and sword fights. Joseph Conrad uses Marlow's character to get across and express his own opinion.
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.
... a great man, Kurtz, to observe and learn from his actions, and to revel in his perceived greatness, however, the great Kurtz had already succumbed to the jungle before Marlow even knew of the man’s existence. From the onset, each experience of Marlow’s quest was riddled with bewildering challenges and produced twisted, rather than expected, outcomes. Upon every twist, Marlow finds himself becoming disenchanted with his intended mission due to the cruel misfortunes he encountered along the way. Additionally, Marlow’s inability to control the situation led to both personal frustration and doubt. Marlow’s own emotional and philosophical journey is nearly as dark as the physical evil lurking in the native filled jungles of Africa. Marlow was trapped by his circumstances before his journey began, resulting in his own regret, disgust, desire to surrender and hatred.
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.
Heart of Darkness is a story of one man's journey through the African Congo and the "enlightenment" of his soul. It begins with Charlie Marlow, along with a few of his comrades, cruising aboard the Nellie, a traditional sailboat. On the boat, Marlow begins to tell of his experiences in the Congo. Conrad uses Marlow to reveal all the personal thoughts and emotions that he wants to portray while Marlow goes on this "voyage of a lifetime". Marlow begins his voyage as an ordinary English sailor who is traveling to the African Congo on a "business trip". He is an Englishmen through and through. He's never been exposed to any alternative form of culture, similar to the one he will encounter in Africa, and he has no idea about the drastically different culture that exists out there.
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.
Beyond the shield of civilization and into the depths of a primitive, untamed frontier lies the true face of the human soul. It is in the midst of this savagery and unrelenting danger that mankind confronts the brooding nature of his inner self. Joseph Conrad’s novel, Heart of Darkness, is the story of one man's insight into life as he embarks on a voyage to the edges of the world. Here, he meets the bitter, yet enlightening forces that eventually shape his outlook on life and his own individuality. Conrad’s portrayal of the characters, setting, and symbols, allow the reader to reflect on the true nature of man.
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 by Joseph Conrad is a novella that tells the story about a group of young man that sail up Congo River in search of a man named Kurtz. As they head up the river they encounter many cruel acts such as ambushes, attacks with fire arrows, and a mass killing where Kurtz has been staying. Kurtz is said to be a man with great abilities but is believed to have gone mad. When Marlow has to wait to head up river his curiosity about Kurtz grows. The men set off up the Congo on a steam boat with Marlow as the captain. Conrad uses many literary works to help convey what the men went through, some of the one he used was irony, juxtaposition, symbolism.
Marlow is telling the story to his friends in the dark of night on the Thames river. As he begins the day is just ending "in a serenity of still and exquisite brilliance." It is a very sombre and dull atmosphere and as the calmness begins to fade it becomes more profound. At one point Marlow stops and is interrupted by the unknown narrator who describes the setting on the Nellie. "It had become so pitch dark that we listeners could hardly see one another. For a long time already he, sitting apart, had been no more to us than a voice....I listened, I listened on the watch for the sentence, for the word, that would give me the clew to the faint uneasiness inspired by this narrative that seemed to shape itself without human lips in the heavy nightair of the river."
A masterpiece of twentieth-century writing, Heart of Darkness exposes the tenuous fabric that holds "civilization" together and the brutal horror at the center of European colonialism. Joseph Conrad's novella, Heart of Darkness, describes a life-altering journey that the protagonist, Marlow, experiences in the African Congo. The story explores the historical period of colonialism in Africa to exemplify Marlow's struggles. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is most often read as an attack upon colonialism. Marlow, like other Europeans of his time, is brought up to believe certain things about colonialism, but his views change as he experiences the effects of colonialism first hand. This essay will look at Marlow's negative view of colonialism, which is shaped through his experiences and from his relation to Kurtz. Marlow's understanding of Kurtz's experiences show him the effects colonialism can have on a man's soul.
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad may be a narrative about colonisation, revealing its drawbacks and corruption, but it may also be understood as a journey into the depths of one’s psyche, if taken at a symbolic level.