Analysis Of Joseph Conrad 's Heart Of Darkness

One of the main motifs in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is the comparison between various interiors and exteriors. As Marlow tells the men aboard the Nellie the story about his travels in the African Congo, this recurring pattern is explored. This comparison between interiors and exteriors is a symbol for the light and darkness that can be found in humans. The exterior symbolizes the light, while the interior represents the darkness. The bright exterior often masks the darkness that can be found within a person.

"The horror, the horror!" Kurtz exclaims prior to his last breath of life on earth. In those final moments, Kurtz was able to say something so true about the whole mess of human life. A life dominated by the fittest, perceived differently through each human eye, and full of judgement lacking understanding of all sides. The various ways the world is viewed causes many problems amongst its people. Whether they are about racism, wealth, or even common sense, conflicts are still subject to arouse. Why? The answer to this is not yet clear because of its complexity and endless variables. Yet what is clear is that it ties into two other aspects-prejudice and social

    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.

    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.

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

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.

During the 19th century, Europeans tried to colonize as much of Africa as possible. The

For the most part people who read Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad may feel that the novella is strictly a story of exploration and racial discrimination. But to Johanna Smith who wrote “’Too Beautiful Altogether’: Ideologies of Gender and Empire in Heart of Darkness” it is much more than that. Johanna Smith along with Wallace Watson and Rita A. Bergenholtz agree that throughout Heart of Darkness there are tones of gender prejudice, but the way that these three different authors perceive and interpret those gender tones are to a certain extent different.

The constant change in scenery throughout the Heart of Darkness contributes heavily to the meaning of the novel as a whole, for it allows the novel’s author, Joseph Conrad, to expand on the effects the physical journey of travelling through the Congo has on the inner mentailites of the characters- Marlow and Kurtz- in the novel. Conrad’s continuous comparisons between characters, their surroundings, and the plot, create the genuine progression of the novel, while the physical journey that is taken allows the characters to make their own discovery of humankind. As Kurtz’s destiny and the struggles he overcomes go on to deeply affect the two characters’ journey through the story’s plot, as everything in the Heart of Darkness is linked or comes back to Kurtz and all the wrongful actions he has committed in the Congo- as he was the perpetrator of all the darkness in the novel to begin with.

At the ripe age of 12, I received my first shiny new hockey stick, and before the blade touched the ice, I named her Lucy. A few years later, my friend was fortunate enough to inherit her family’s beat up station wagon, and we all collectively agreed to call him Wilfred. For many, this idea of gendering something new and beautiful as female is second nature to us. Similar to my 12-year-old self’s new hockey stick, we often gender nature as feminine, because of its irrefutable beauty and power. While Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is set in a patriarchal society, the jungle that is recognized to have female qualities, enforces the main commanding force over the men in the Congo. Conrad’s two contrasting representations of women are shown through the influential Congolese woman, who is a personification of the jungle, and the Intended, who represents the Western women who are oblivious to the true horrors in modern day society.

After reading Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and after hearing and reading about the feminist perspective on it, I have decided to focus in on that specific theme in the novelette. While many have speculated about what Conrad is saying when it comes to woman, it has become clear to me that Conrad was in fact critiquing the way woman were treated in the 1900’s. He portrays woman as weak and incapable and out of touch through Marlow’s perspective, however, Conrad finds sly ways to make the reader rethink the stereotypes placed on the woman in the novel and women in living in the world overall.

The world a century and a half ago was a radically different place. Not all land in the world had definite geopolitical boundaries. Many people of more advanced civilizations looked down upon those with lesser technology. There were still places to be colonized and civilized. Imperialism in the 1800s and 1900s generally followed five stereotypes. Black people are a separate and lesser species. Natives are generally thought of as being savages. Under the right circumstances, anyone can lose touch with his/her humanity. Greed can drive people to extremes. Imperialism hurts those conquering and those being conquered.

Heart of Darkness is written by Joseph Conrad and published in 1899. It is a novella written in the early modernism literary period.

The two major themes of Heart of Darkness are the conflict between “reality” and “darkness,” and the idea of restraint and whether or not it is necessary. Conrad’s passage describing the restraint of the hungry cannibals exemplifies both themes:  It describes how reality shapes human behavior, and contrasts the characters of Kurtz and Marlow.  “Reality,” as it is used here, is defined as “that which is civilized.”

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is considered one among the successes of the works of English Literature deserving early response and praise. However, it caused a stir in the late 70s, a change of reception among readers when Chinua Achebe accused the novella for being racist. Edward Said, consequently, wrote his own critique in defence of Achebe’s conception of Conrad’s masterpiece. In this essay I will argue that both Achebe and Said are primarily influenced by the period in which their respective essays were written. I will also elaborate on the perspectives these critics have taken their discussion from and how they have been influenced by their own time in commencing into a debate on Conrad and how their points, their arguments have changed through time.