Essay on Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness

    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.

The causes for British imperialism was simply to them to civilize the “uncivilized”. Imperialism was at an advance to Africa because it was at a weak state already so the Europeans took advantage of that and took what they could get. What Sir Frank

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.

In Joseph Conrad’s, Heart of Darkness we see the depiction of Africa as a eye opening and brutal metaphor for human nature by the contrast between Africa and Europe, Conrad’s depiction natives, and the geographical

In Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, the imperialism of Africa is described. Conrad tells the story of the cruel treatment of the natives and of the imperialism of the Congo region through the perspective of the main character, Marlow. Throughout the novel, Marlow describes how the Europeans continuously bestow poor treatment to the native people by enslaving them in their own territory. Analyzing the story with the New Criticism lens, it is evident that Conrad incorporates numerous literary devices in Heart of Darkness, including similes, imagery, personification, and antitheses to describe and exemplify the main idea of cruel imperialism in Africa discussed throughout the novella.

Joseph Conrad’s novel “Heart of Darkness” was written during an age of exploration and imperialism during the late 1800’s. The story follows Marlow’s journey to discover Africa and the confronting effects of imperialism while also exploring his spiritual journey of self discovery. Marlow gains a deeper understanding of himself as he also explores the true nature of human beings and their deterioration of morals when separated form society. Through his exploration and realisation of imperialist hypocrisy he discovers the human capacity for evil within all of us. Conrad speaks through Marlow who details the African’s way of life and the treatment of them by the imperialists.

Joseph Conrad’s literary work “The Heart of Darkness” displays criticism upon imperialism and even places valid points that arise in today’s contemporary society. This piece of literature has a valid standpoint due to the author’s background. The author’s upbringing gave birth to the story with vivid life experiences that were incorporated into the text. Joseph Conrad was able to capture the nature of imperialism within his writing due to the intimate nature he had with the subject. Although the writing may not have been initially viewed as a critical review on imperialism, the critique is evident throughout the text and event applies to modern occurrences.

The author of Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad, and the author of Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe, both present two stories written in completely different perspectives on the way whites and African’s view each other. These two men also lived in completely different time eras than each other, along with opposite life styles which affected their view on their writings, for Joseph Conrad lived in the late 1800’s, born in Ukraine, and Chinua Achebe in the early 1900’s, born in Nigeria. Man’s fallen nature plays a large role in Heart of Darkness and in Things Fall Apart, through the way that the characters view other people in the books. The white characters tend to view the Africans as savages; however, they actually have great abilities that they do not know of. Man’s fallen nature also affects how the characters interact with each other in man vs man, since the white do not view the Africans in the same way, they will think lowly of the Africans and treat them with disrespect. Throughout the stories of Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart, man’s fallen nature is seen throughout the communication with white’s and Africans, this can be seen through how they think of each other and their actions from man’s fallen nature through man vs man.

   Joseph Conrad's novel, Heart of Darkness, is about many things: seafaring, riverboating, trade and exploration, imperialism and colonialism, race relations, the attempt to find meaning in the universe while trying to get at the mysteries of the subconscious mind. Heart of Darkness is a vivid portrayal of European imperialism.  The book in other words is a story about European "acts of imperial mastery" (1503)-its methods, and the effects it has on human nature-and it is presumable that Conrad incorporates much of his own experience in the Congo and his opinions about imperialism into the story.

    In Lacanian psychoanalysis, telling stories is essential to the analysand's (re)cognition of trauma. Julia Kristeva refers to the analysand's narrative as an instance of "'borderline' [neurotic] discourse" which "gives the analyst the impression of something alogical, unstitched, and chaotic" (42). She then explores the pleasure (jouissance) that the analysand experiences in the course of Lacan's talking cure. For the analysand, the pleasure is in the telling: "[T]he analyst is struck by a certain maniacal eroticization of speech, as if the patient were clinging to it, gulping it down, sucking on it, delighting in all the aspects of an oral eroticization and a narcissistic safety belt

One of the biggest fallacies one could make is believe with certainty that humankind is only one way (good or bad) without taking into account that ascertaining the precise percentage of how good and how bad humanity is almost inconceivable. The only thing one can infer is that every human and everything created by humans has two sides to it: the form and the substance. Joseph Conrad’s novella “Heart of Darkness” shows precisely how dangerous it is to put our trust in a concept, for example: colonization, without realizing that most of the time one only gets to see the form and not the substance.

The novel Heart of Darkness, written by Conrad, explores the Congo through Marlow’s story. Marlow discovers the horror behind imperialism through the invasion of Europeans into the Congo, inhabited by African natives. Conrad includes irony, imagery, and symbolism to criticize white imperialism and argue that Europeans cause destruction and native societies. In Heart of Darkness, Conrad reverses the traditional associations with Europeans and natives to argue that the success of a society depends on its level of morality, which is absent in imperialism.

In Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad limits the amount and activity of his female characters, especially through the protagonist Marlow. Marlow merely reduces women into creatures of a different world and fails to see the importance of females. However, through this oppressive view on women, Conrad demonstrates Marlow’s ironic subjugation of women. Although in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, women simply serve as symbols while Marlow attempts to display himself as masculine, Conrad reveals the influence of women on the world through the application of stereotypically feminine qualities on Marlow and seemingly passive, yet essential, female roles. Thus, in the superficially anti-feminist novella, the ubiquitous impact of females undermines the patriarchal view of women as powerless and inferior, suggesting that men oppress women out of fear of inferiority.

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

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.