A Journey into Darkness in Heart of Darkness
Joseph Conrad, in his story, "Heart of Darkness," tells the
tale of two mens' realization of the dark and evil side of themselves.
Marlow, the "second" narrator of the framed narrative, embarked upon a
spiritual adventure on which he witnessed firsthand the wicked potential in
everyone. On his journey into the dark, forbidden Congo, Marlow encountered
Kurtz, a "remarkable man" and
"universal genius," who had made himself a god in the eyes of the natives
over whom he had an imperceptible power. These two men were, in a sense,
images of each other: Marlow was what Kurtz may have been, and Kurtz was
what Marlow may have become.
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Exposed to the
unfamiliar emotional and physical demands of the African wilderness, free
to do exactly as he chose, Kurtz plunged into horrible orgies of which
human sacrifice and cannibalism seemed to have formed a part. These
excesses taught him and Marlow what human nature was actually like: "The
horror!" Kurtz gasped before he died. Marlow's own journey from Belgium to
the Congo and thence up the river then took on the aspect of a man's
journey into his own inner depths. Marlow was saved from the other man's
fate not by higher principles or a better disposition, but merely because
he happened to be very busy, and the demands of work were themselves a
discipline. The readers perceive, too, that other white men on the Congo
refrained from such excesses, if they did so, only because they had lesser,
more timorous natures which did not dare to express themselves completely.
Marlow felt that he had taken the lid off something horrible in the very
depths of man which he could not explain when he returned to the world
where basic instincts had been carefully smoothed over. Faced by a crisis,
he even denied what he had seen to Kurtz's Intended, though he was appalled
by his lie as bringing with it a betrayal of truth which was essentially a
kind of death.
In "Heart of Darkness" the sense of human waste that pervaded the
Throughout the first two parts of Joseph Conrad's book, Heart of Darkness, the character Kurtz is built up to be this amazing and remarkable man. In the third book, however, we learn the truth about who Kurtz really is. Kurtz cries out in a whisper, "The horror! The horror!"(p. 86), and in only two words he manages to sum up the realization of all the horrors of his life during his time in the Congo.
Heart of Darkness is a book about one man’s journey into the depths of the African Congo. He travels to a place where, "’the changes take place inside’"(Conrad 15). For a man named Kurtz, his journey went deeper into Africa then he could have ever expected. Kurtz’s journey into Africa ended up being a journey into the darkness within himself.
The novel, Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, portrays a dark and somber theme throughout the entirety of the book. Even in the end, the darkness is still there. But even so, the end is difficult to understand. The ending is very vague on certain perspectives. Conrad intentionally does this, not to detract from the rest of the novel, but to sum the entirety of his main point up.
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.
Some critics believe that in Heart of Darkness Conrad illustrates how ‘’the darkness of the landscape can lead to the darkness of the social corruption.” This statement means that if the environment is dark, then the people in that environment will match the surrounding feeling, which is dark and depressing. For example, if it is a gloomy rainy day, most people feel tired and not as happy. If it is a bright sunny day, the most people feel motivated to get things done and joyful. Yes, this statement is believable because I have noticed that the weather, my surroundings, and even other people’s behaviors around me affect my mood. Today, for instance, it rained all day and the sky was dark, as a result I slept throughout the whole
There is an abundance of literature in which characters become caught between colliding cultures. Often, these characters experience a period of growth from their exposure to a culture that’s dissimilar to their own. Such is the case with Marlow, Joseph Conrad’s infamous protagonist from ‘Heart of Darkness’. Marlow sets off to Africa on an ivory conquest and promptly found himself sailing into the heart of the Congo River. Along the way he is faced with disgruntled natives, cannibals, and the ominous and foreboding landscape. Marlow’s response to these tribulations is an introspective one, in which he calls into question his identity. This transcending of his former self renders the work as a whole a
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
Psychoanalytic criticism originated in the work of Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who pioneered the technique of psychoanalysis. Freud developed a language that described, a model that explained, and a theory that encompassed human psychology. His theories are directly and indirectly concerned with the nature of the unconscious mind. Through his multiple case studies, Freud managed to find convincing evidence that most of our actions are motivated by psychological forces over which we have very limited control (Guerin 127). One of Freud’s most important contributions to the study of the psyche is his theory of repression: the unconscious mind is a repository of repressed desires,
Inherent inside every human soul is a savage evil side that remains repressed by society. Often this evil side breaks out during times of isolation from our culture, and whenever one culture confronts another. History is loaded with examples of atrocities that have occurred when one culture comes into contact with another. Whenever fundamentally different cultures meet, there is often a fear of contamination and loss of self that leads us to discover more about our true selves, often causing perceived madness by those who have yet to discover their own self. Joseph Conrad’s book, The Heart of Darkness is a story about Man’s journey into his self, the discoveries to be made there and about
“The bitterest contradiction and the deadliest conflicts of the world are carried on in every individual breast capable of feeling and passion” (Raskin 116). It is possible that those with the best intentions can create some of the deadliest atrocities as passion can take control over one's emotions. This emotional instability can be seen in Heart of Darkness as Joseph Conrad illustrates how one’s “passion” of saving others slowly turns into madness that causes hundreds of fatalities. We wonder, what could cause a man, such as Kurtz, in Heart of Darkness, to enter another country with the best intentions, to become so violent and be the reason behind thousands of brutal and torturous killings without
The Congo River is the largest river in western central Africa, which makes it one of the largest rivers in Africa, other than the Nile River. The river is one of the most important elements in the novel. The Congo allows the Europeans access into the deeper
One way in which the title can be interpreted is to symbolize the interior of Africa called the Congo. The text considers the deep jungle of Africa as the heart of darkness both for its untamed and hostile wilderness and for its supposed "savages" who hang out there practicing certain non-European customs such as cannibalism. The major and significant
this in order that she would drop me off at the pub. I was keen to get
In the book, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, all the characters are pulled into a well of black despair. Conrad uses the darkness of the situation contrasted to the light of society to show man’s dependence on western morals, and how when these morals are challenged by the darkness, the light crumbles under its newly weakened foundation. The contrast between light and dark is most stark in the themes of setting, the changes in Europeans as they drive farther into the Congo, and the white man’s collapse under the ultimate darkness of the Innermost Congo.
Stafford furtively conceals the profound meaning of his poem behind a story of the narrator, who stops alongside the road to care for a deer. The genius behind poem is better understood when the superficial meaning is expressed deeply.