Heart Of Darkness Character Analysis

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 is a book about one man’s journey into the depths of the African Congo. He travels to a place where, "’the changes take place inside’"(Conrad 15). For a man named Kurtz, his journey went deeper into Africa then he could have ever expected. Kurtz’s journey into Africa ended up being a journey into the darkness within himself.

In Heart Of Darkness, Conrad introduces the following characters, the manager, the brickman, and the foreman, with various distinctive characteristics. Additionally, Conrad applies each man to contribute towards accumulating information about Mr. Kurtz to Marlow. Correspondingly, while Marlow was accumulating information regarding Mr. Kurtz, Marlow encounters a painting created by Mr. Kurtz, which possesses a symbolic connotation to it. Furthermore, as a consequence of Marlow interest in Kurtz, it exceedingly represents Marlow’s characteristic.

In Heart of Darkness, Charlie Marlow’s melancholy tone sets the mood for severity of the abhorrent occurrences he witnessed while in the interior of the Congo Free State, and as the intermediate narrator, is able to re-explore this dreadful experience during his narration, that allows him to represent his thoughts and gives reader’s direct access to his conscious. As the central consciousness of the novella, Marlow is first presented directly by our anonymous first person narrator (a passenger on the ship), but because of the story’s interweaving plot structure, a flashback occurs and Marlow steps in as the narrator, and it becomes our job as readers to understand Marlow through his actions as he himself analyzes his inner-self. Conrad follows

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.

     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.

Conrad’s plot and summary do not only strengthen his novel but also attracts a lot of people to his work. The book presents us to Marlow who apparently is the main narrator of what is covered in “heart of darkness” by Conrad. With the quest to navigate the fascinating Congo River he had seen on a map, Marlow gets help from his aunt and embarks on a journey to the great Congo River. With numerous encounters with the natives and other traders from the west who are in the ivory trade, Marlow’s character is put to the light for the reader. The plot displays the narrator’s character using three simple perspectives from the physical journey, space and time journey and from the perspective of self (Conrad, p.5).

Set in the heart of the Congo, Heart of Darkness is a tale of a man named Marlow who is hired as a steamboat captain by a Belgian owned company. During the late 19th century, Africa was divvied up, so to speak, by imperialistic powers and was the world’s hotspot for the much sought after ivory. Marlow was hired for a quest to set out and find a mystery man named Kurtz who was also part of the same company and was currently in the Congo. Kurtz had apparently gone crazy, so it was the mission of Marlow to locate and retrieve him.

Throughout Joseph Conrad’s novel, Heart of Darkness, some major themes are oblivion as well as this idea of natural power. In the novel, Marlow recollects his time travelling up the Congo River in search of the famous ivory trader, Mr. Kurtz. During the novel, Marlow often describes the natural terrain as a king, ruling over the land. This idea of natural power helps the reader clear up the oblivion surrounding the jungle because the natural power talks of a simpler time, one that Marlow understands. The Congo River often represents this simpler time, whereas the Thames River, in London, represents a much more complex period of time, one where people have taken control of the power. The role of the rivers throughout the text helps elaborate on the themes of oblivion and power and when Marlow describes his travels down the Congo River, he shows how little he actually knows while on his travels.

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad may be a difficult story to understand at first due to its length, but should the reader put their views into its themes then they will understand it is a story with many different and diverse interpretations. The characters are the biggest examples of this concept since their personalities can be seen as representations of their real-world counterparts. Marlow is the naive and inexperienced person who has to go through potential traumatic events in order to grow as a person while Kurtz is the corrupted genius who has to perform unjustifiable actions in order to satisfy his desires. Conrad also presents to us how alluring power can be due to its many advantages, but it can also distort the person to the point

“No man ever steps into the same river twice, for it's not the same river, and he’s not the same man” -Heraclitus. This quote accurately depicts the protagonist, Charles Marlow in the novella Heart of Darkness written by Joseph Conrad. Heart of Darkness is read from the narration of Marlow, an ivory transporter who travels down the Congo. Throughout his journey, Marlow develops an intense interest in the famous ivory trader Kurtz, who is portrayed as a powerful, sage, and evil man. The story is based on Marlows experiences with the encounters he's faced with and his ability to be fickle based in these encounterments. In Heart of Darkness, we see Conrad use the river to symbolize movement throughout the novella.

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.

The novella Heart of Darkness was written in 1899. At the turn of the century, the author, Joseph Conrad, was 32 and lived through what he writes about. In a journey through Congo, Conrad uses the novella’s central character Marlowe to represent himself and portray his experiences. Like many other writers and artists throughout history, people of his time did not appreciate his work. Even the true meaning of the novel was not understood until later. In the novella Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad uses a literal and figurative journey through Congo to portray an internal conflict that exists within the protagonist, Marlowe. Through symbolism, the author analyzes the ‘inner spirit’ that each individual member of society possesses and how

The “Heart of Darkness” is a novel written by the Polish-British novelist called Joseph Conrad. The author talks about the main character Marlow who is an introspective sailor. Marlow works as a riverboat captain in Congo with the Belgian Company. He encounters brutalities in the company while traveling back and forth in Africa and Congo. The company’s agents force native inhabitants to work in the company against their will and make them suffer due to overwork and poor treatments by the supervisors. While working, Marlow’s steamship gets sunk, and he meets Kurtz and develops an interest in him while waiting for the repair of the ship. The Heart of Darkness also contains several symbols. The fog is one of the symbols in the novel representing an obstacle that prevent Marlow from seeing where he is going. The Heart of Darkness, therefore, contains symbols and themes which explains the personalities or traits of each character in the book.