Heart Of Darkness By Joseph Conrad Essay

Joseph Conrad's short novel Heart of Darkness (first published in 1902) is undoubtedly critically acclaimed, moreover, it is considered to be one of the greatest English novels. Conrad, who is of Polish ancestry, is as well considered to be an outstanding storyteller and a great stylist of modern fiction (Achebe 2). Even though this novel was written more than hundred years ago, it still draws many people's attention. The plot of the novel revolves around the main character, Marlow, and his journey to the heart of Africa (the Congo River). Marlow accepts to work as a steamship captain for a Belgian ivory-trade company and seeks to meet Kurtz, another important character in the novel whom many people admired, including, to a point, Marlow. On

Heart of Darkness written by Joseph Conrad is dramatic tale of an arduous trek into the darkest part of Africa at the turn of the twentieth century. The story follows the protagonist Marlow, an English marine merchant, as he travels through the African jungle up the Congo river in search for a mysterious man named Kurtz. Through Marlow's narration, Conrad provides a searing indictment of European colonial exploitation inflicted upon African natives. Through his use of irony, characters, and symbolism in the novel, Conrad aims to unveil the underlying horrors of colonialism. By shedding light on the brutality of colonialism in Heart of Darkness, Conrad shows that European values have been irrevocably eclipsed by darkness.

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad depicts the events, locations, and ideas that Marlow encounters in terms of Light and Darkness. As Marlow starts his journey from the city of civilization and enlightenment which creates an atmosphere of light, but his viewpoint changes as on his journey he encounters the African jungles that lead to immense darkness. In Fitzgerald’s May Day, in and out is symbolic of Gordon’s situation. Gordon is out of luck and seeks help, is in a hope that his friend Philip Dean can help him in his financial crisis. But as it turns out, Dean refuses to help him. Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Fitzgerald’s May Day shows the light and darkness as an illustration of how the forces of nature control a man.

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness takes place in a world built on imperialism. Written in 1899, Conrad is living in a world still very much involved in Africa. Infect this presence did not begin to end until the early 1960s. Heart of Darkness can be viewed as a very forward thinking book. Joseph Conrad utilizes his book as a mean to send a message. He utilizes his rhetorical devices and moves in order to help him get this message across. One way Conrad portrays his message is by establishing the connection between light and dark. Additionally Conrad uses vivid description to depict the savage behavior of the natives. He makes meaning by later creating a parallel with the behaviors of the white imperialists. Conrad also utilizes imagery to describe the perceived outcome of the voyage in the eyes of the imperialists. He makes meaning by doing this as he later contrasts this showing how things are oven not as they seem. Continuing the idea that things are often not as they seem is Conrad’s diction

    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.

‘Heart of Darkness’ includes four-month of Conrad in Congo, and his command of a Congo River steamboat. Conrad experienced and saw the violence made by the European explorers and traders in Congo. He created the embodiment of European imperialism in his character, Kurtz. The novel tell the story of Marlow, a seamen who undertakes his own journey into the African Jungle to find the European trader, Kurtz.

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.

The hypocrisy occurring in the African Congo becomes evidently more clear to Marlow; Marlow’s original expressed feeling about their conquest has altered. In a critical essay named ‘Conrad: A Reassessment’, written by Douglas Hewitt in the Twentieth Century Literary Criticism Journal, Hewitt mentions of Marlow’s altered perception of his imperialist conquest. Hewitt states: “It is interesting to Observe in the ‘Heart Of Darkness’ where the morality of the trading is

   Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" is, as Edward Said states a story about European "acts of imperial mastery" (1503)-its methods, and the effects it has on human nature. Furthermore I hold the presumption that Conrad incorporates much of his own experience in the Congo and his opinions about imperialism. Another recent critic also suggests: "he seems to approve of Marlow," the narrator (Achebe 1492). These revelations of the author are conveyed to the reader through Marlow's observations, descriptions, reactions, and statements.

     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

Although the author Joseph Conrad never met the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who died more than a century before Conrad’s birth, their distinct philosophies still have numerous points of intersection, suggesting some fundamental truths within the structure of the human reality. Through the novella, Heart of Darkness, Conrad details his perspectives on the faults of man and reality as a whole, with views often coinciding with many of Leibniz’s own, as found in his numerous philosophical works. Consequently, the two perspectives combine together, like a cyclopean image, to enhance and deepen each of the two men’s philosophies on humanity.

The description shows the bleakness of the Congo compared to the outside world, is one of the first representations of the civilized (or outside) world contrasted to the Congo. The uncivilized/civilized comparison and the descriptions of darkness heighten when Conrad increases the contrast by moving Marlow into an oasis of civilization, the Main Station, a port outpost on the coast of Africa, owned and commanded by white Europeans, but kept alive by the slave work of black natives. Upon setting foot on shore,

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.”

It has been said that although Conrad may not have been 'the greatest novelist, he was certainly the greatest artist every to write a novel';. I feel that this is an apt description of Conrad's writing style in Heart of Darkness (1902), as he paints many verbal pictures by using expressive words and many figurative descriptions of places and people. An extensive use of words relating to colour, is evident throughout the novella. The idea of darkness (and light) is emphasized from the title of the novella, and continues to play an important role throughout in the story .