Analysis Of Conrad 's Heart Of Darkness

The devil works in many ways, he tries to mess with our heads, put fear within ourselves, make us feel hatred towards others, and to make us believe human nature is only evil. In two short stories the devil tries make two protagonist see only evil. Stephen King’s short story “The Man in the Black Suit,” and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN,” show the devil at his best trying to get the protagonist to see evil. The devil uses his language, and his appearance to meet his motives. He is successful with some of his tactics, but not with all of them.

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.

    Literature is never interpreted in exactly the same way by two different readers. A prime example of a work of literature that is very ambiguous is Joseph Conrad's, "Heart of Darkness". The Ambiguities that exist in this book are Marlow's relationship to colonialism, Marlow's changing feelings toward Kurtz, and Marlow's lie to the Intended at the end of the story.

The Devil’s casual appearance helped him gain the characters trust and enter into their lives. When the devil first appears in “Young Goodman Brown”, he is dressed in fine church clothes and had an “indescribable air of one who knew the world”(Hawthorne 2). The fellow traveler had a “considerable resemblance” to Goodman as if they were father and son (2). Because he is very approachable, the Devil tempts anyone he meets with magic and the promise of happiness. As his shadow passed, the grass and flowers became “strangely withered and dried” beneath it (4). To the characters in the story and Goodman Brown, the Devil appears as a sincere person but he is covering up the evil underneath. After Goodman met the Devil, he had the “instinct that guides a mortal man to evil” and saw the “shape of his dead father beckoning him to

The devil refers to seeing Goodman Brown’s grandfather whipping a Quaker in the streets and handing Goodman Brown’s father a flaming torch so that he could set fire to an Indian village during King Philip’s War. By including these references, Hawthorne reminds the reader of the dubious history of Salem Village and the legacy of the Puritans and emphasizes the historical roots of Goodman Brown’s fascination with the devil and the dark side.

    Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is full of oppositions.  The most obvious is the juxtaposition of darkness and light, which are both present from the very beginning, in imagery and in metaphor.  The novella is a puzzling mixture of anti-imperialism and racism, civilization and savagery, idealism and nihilism.  How can they be reconciled?  The final scene, in which Marlow confronts Kurtz's Intended, might be expected to provide resolution.  However, it seems, instead, merely to focus the dilemmas in the book, rather than solving them.

Marlow’s evolution renders ‘Heart of Darkness’ a remarkable work of literature, but it is not simply the budding of the narrator’s mind that makes the novel sensational. Marlow’s perception of the voyage is what truly renders the work exceptional. European expansion, as written by European writers, was generally cast in a positive light. When Conrad depicts the desolation of the journey and reveals the sanities and lives robbed through the conquest, he clearly does not conform to the writers of his time. This exposure of European expansion in such a sinister a fashion was innovative for writers of the late 17th century. This revolutionary perception is what truly allows ‘Heart of Darkness’ to be considered a novel rich in moral and detail.

What makes Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness more than the run of the mill adventure tale, is its moral complexity. By the end of the novel, we find a protagonist who has immense appreciation for a man who lacks honest redemption, the mysterious Mr. Kurtz. It is the literal vivaciousness and unyielding spirit of this man, his pure intentionality, which Marlow finds so entrancing and which leaves the reader with larger questions regarding the human capacity. Therefore, Heart of Darkness is profoundly different given its character complexity and ambiguous narrative technique which ultimately deliver home a message of the complex motivations and capabilities of mankind.

     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

Chinua Achebe, a well-known writer, once gave a lecture at the University of Massachusetts about Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, entitled "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness." Throughout his essay, Achebe notes how Conrad used Africa as a background only, and how he "set Africa up as a foil to Europe,"(Achebe, p.251) while he also "projects the image of Africa as 'the other world,' the antithesis of Europe and therefore of civilization."(Achebe, p.252) By his own interpretations of the text, Achebe shows that Conrad eliminates "the African as a human factor," thereby "reducing Africa to the role of props."(Achebe, p.257)

    Within the text of Heart of Darkness, the reader is presented with many metaphors. Those that recur, and are most arresting and notable, are light and dark, nature and Kurtz and Marlow. The repeated use of light and dark imagery represents civilization and primitiveness, and of course the eternal meaning of good and evil. However, the more in depth the reader goes the more complex it becomes. Complex also are the meanings behind the metaphors of nature included within the text. It represents a challenge for the colonists, often also signifying decay and degeneration. Finally Kurtz and Marlow represent imperialism and the colonists. All these metaphors come together and contribute not only to

Conrad’s usage of imagery in the - Heart of Darkness - Aristotle, a famous Greek philosopher, said that the aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. If that is the case, then Joseph Conrad is a true artist regarding the pictures he paints with his words. Conrad's most effective literary tool for plot development and expressing the theme is his use of imagery. Karl, a noted critic, explains this technique that Conrad uses. “The scenes and images (that Conrad depicts) are a variety which permits extension and almost a limitless number of references are possible”(168).

Although, as a society, we discourage the process of not judging a book by its cover, we have all been guilty of doing it at some point. The first item we look at when we pick up a new book is the title and the cover as a whole. These are two key components when it comes to using our heuristics to decide if a book is worthwhile reading or not. With only two items to judge by, each has to hold significant importance in order to draw a reader into reading the novel. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad represents a mysterious title to draw readers into reading the novel, but hold a much more significant underlying meaning which represents many elements in the novel, while also symbolizing external concepts in the overall plot. The title represents many important elements such as the character of Mr. Kurtz and others, to the setting of Africa in the novel, and to the concept of the evil nature of imperialism outside of the novel. Through the title, Conrad has created significance for elements of the novel creating a very large impact on readers of the book.

This is expressed at both the start and the end of the novel. The “light” of Marlow, and his subsequent psychological awareness and evolution, is contrasted by Kurtz, who, as many have expressed, may represent the “dark” half of Marlow.

The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is a frame narrative which creates a clear and organized structure. This structure helps emphasize upon the hypocrisy of imperialism in the novel and Marlow’s journey to discovering his true identity. The orderly and systematic nature of the structure corresponds with the Company in the novel and how it seems so structured on the outside while their mission is actually extremely chaotic underneath as displayed by Kurtz. The cyclical structure of the novel outlines Marlow’s journey in finding himself and his true identity. As the chaos of the journey is uncovered, Marlow delves deeper and deeper into uncertainty regarding the things going on around him in his life.