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 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.

In Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad suggest that true human existence cannot prevail productively without the dynamics of society. Throughout numerous scenes in the novel, Conrad stresses the necessity of societal restraints through Kurtz’s inability to prosper as a human being when he is removed from the expectations of civilization. In the scene above, Marlow’s myopic observations of Kurtz reveals Conrad’s theme by illustrating the annihilation of Kurtz’s essential human characteristics as he descends into a barbaric lifestyle absent of the norms of society. Not only does the above scene support Conrad’s main theme, but it portrays his writing style, characterization of Marlow, and symbolism as used throughout the novel.

At the end of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Marlow has has finally returned to Brussels from the Congo, and his interactions with the Intended lead to revelations surrounding the true intentions of Kurtz’s actions. As opposed to Part I, where Kurtz’s words place a veil over Marlow and cause him to seem conflicted in his judgement, Marlow now realizes what he has implicitly contributed to by enabling Kurtz. Marlow initially withdraws judgement and condones Kurtz’s actions due to the persuasive nature of his words; however, this ambivalence eventually transforms to horror as he realizes the grave repercussions of Kurtz’s brutal dominance.

    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.

Joseph Conrad’s novella, Heart of Darkness, was written in 1899, near the end of the imperialism of Africa. Far from European civilization, the imperialists are without rules and ransacking Africa in search ivory and glory. One of the most significant themes in Heart of Darkness is the psychological issues catalyzed by the lawlessness of the jungle. Due to the breakdown of societal convention, the characters of Heart of Darkness are exposed to not only the corruption of imperialism, but the sickness of their minds.

Abby Slate Weatherall 2 English IV 15 October, 2014 Heart of Darkness Contrast Journal Throughout Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad uses contrasting ideas to create a deeper meaning and develop his personal ideas and feelings on civility and savagery. Such as when he contrasts light and dark, or the Thames and Congo, Conrad reinforces his differentiation between savagery and civility, helping to further the novel as a whole. Joseph Conrad begins by using symbolic elements to explain his contrasting beliefs on savagery and civility. In order to do so, Conrad involves the contrast of dark and light.

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.

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.

The novella The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is about individual journeys through the conflicts within ones’ self and reveals how isolated one is in his conflicts, because no one has the same darkness within. Recurring motif of isolation and darkness in the novella is greatly influenced by Conrads pessimistic view of life. Conrad states in The Heart of Darkness “ we live, as we dream - alone”(97), which emphasizes his isolation throughout the story. This isolation is a necessity, as well as a burden,for one to discover their true darkness. Conrad uses Marlow, the main character, as a parallel of himself and his journies through the Congo.

In Joseph Conrad’s novella, Heart of Darkness, his main character, Charlie Marlow, is fixated with meeting the Kurtz. Initially, Marlow’s knowledge of Kurtz stems from multiple encounters with those individuals close to or around him. As the novella progresses, however, Marlow, himself, comes to understand Kurtz on a much deeper level. Self-righteous, deferential, fraudulent, and susceptible, Kurtz is portrayed as the embodiment of imperialism from its early stages to its eventual degeneration through Conrad’s use of perceptive, symbolism, and selection of detail.

Psychoanalytical lens reveals the range of meanings hidden under the entrancing story. Conrad’s novel, Heart of Darkness has many psychoanalytical interpretations of the complex meanings represented in the text through the use of allegory. The allegorical explanation of human nature avoids the confronting truth and secretes the true meaning under the surface of the literal story. The use of the abstract noun darkness to describe the inner mind represents the daunting nature of the subject. Conrad clarifies his purposeful hidden meaning in the foreshadowing of the tale in which he explains, “The meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow as a glow brings out a haze,”

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.