Comparing Heart Of Darkness And T. S. Eliot's The Hollow Men

   The Hollow Men is a poem by T.S. Eliot who won the Nobel Prize in 1948 for all his great accomplishments. The Hollow Men is about the hollowness that all people have; while Heart of Darkness is a story of the darkness that all people have. The poem written by Eliot was greatly influenced by Conrad and Dante. Some people may even think that WWI also influenced it. It was written after World War I and could be describing how people's beliefs had been eroded. I think that a lot of the poem is written about Heart Of Darkness, and Dante's Inferno is used as imagery for the poem. In this essay I will show how the poem The Hollow Men is talking about the same

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.

As the Heart of Darkness snakes its way into the savage shadows of the African continent, Joseph Conrad exposes a psycho-geography of the collective unconscious in the entangling metaphoric realities of the serpentine Congo. Conrad’s novella descends into the unknowable darkness at the heart of Africa, taking its narrator, Marlow, on an underworld journey of individuation, a modern odyssey toward the center of the Self and the center of the Earth. Ego dissolves into soul as, in the interior, Marlow encounters his double in the powerful image of ivory-obsessed Kurtz, the dark shadow of European imperialism. The dark meditation is graced by personifications of anima in Kurtz’ black goddess, the savagely magnificent consort of the underworld,

    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.

The book, The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is about the protagonist, Charlie Marlow, re-telling his grotesque journey up the Congo River on behalf of a Belgian ivory trading company. During his journey he encounters the harshness of colonialism has impacted the African natives and just how money and power can fully consume the heart of a good man. The play, Hamlet by William Shakespeare outlines the story of a Prince seeking revenge for his father’s murder by his power hungry brother. The two works Hamlet and Heart of Darkness are set and written in different time periods and different settings, but, are metaphorically on the same shelf when it comes to how the dark themes of murder and corruption are presented and how they affect those around them.

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.

Darkness is a major theme in The Heart of Darkness. Kurtz is unaware of his own darkness which leads to his downfall. He cannot see what kind of person he has become and how the darkness of the jungle has completely taken over him. The jungle is so secluded and mysterious that it actually influences Kurtz’s bad behavior. Kurtz becomes greedy and powerful but never realizes that this behavior is bringing him down until he is on the verge of death. Kurtz last words, “The horror! The horror!”(63) show Kurtz’s realization that the darkness had consumed him. Kurtz himself is one of the biggest examples of darkness in this book.

In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the author fiercely challenges imperialism. Through this challenge, he demonstrates the internal battles of good and evil. In his work, he also displays issues of personal morals and alienation. At the time the novella was written, Europe had established territories across the map. It holds true that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, especially when said power reigns over the fate of humans in society. Conrad illustrates the corruption of power through the books’ motif of darkness and the renegade of Kurtz.

     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.

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

Throughout the two novels, Thomas Hardy’s “Tess of the d’Urbervilles” and Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness,” the common theme of oppression by using psychological methods prevails. Tess’ parents and Alec can control her by leveraging guilt as a way of victimization which ultimately seals her fate. Mr. Kurtz in” Heart of Darkness” takes control over the weaker African natives to force them into submission. Both stories have this underlying theme of power and domination resulting in feelings of slavery and victims of fate.

    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

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.

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.

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.