The Vulnerability of Man 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 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.

Heart of Darkness, written by Joseph Conrad, illustrates the odyssey of a sailor named Marlow, as he ventures deeply into the sinuous Congo River. As the darkness of the Congo widens, it suppresses the light of society, as it steadily wanes. Marlow abruptly encounters a copious amount of death surrounding him. The vast stretches of deserted bones rot along the banks of the Congo. This commences the arrival to the territory of savages, animals utterly unfit for society. These savages are arduously completing the tasks of their superior owners as they muck about. Their bodies are wholly decaying, as they perish within the grove of death. Such is the disheartening faith of the feral savages, the barbaric Congolese. The angels of Belgium sought

The protagonist Marlow believes that: “the mind of man is capable of anything-because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future” (109). The basis of Heart of Darkness is Marlow's physical journey up the congo river to meet Kurtz. The main character Marlow goes through many physical and psycological changes from the beginning to the end of the story. In the beginning, Marlow is fairly innocent as he goes up the river, he gets closer and closer to Kurtz, and he moves closer and closer he learns more and more about the hearts of men and the darkness. When he eventually reaches Kurtz, Marlow's perception is obstructed and he physically and psychologically, does not know where he is.

1.     The protagonist of Heart of Darkness is a person named Charlie Marlow. Oddly, his name only appears once in the novel. Marlow is philosophical, independent-minded, and generally skeptical of those around him. He is also a master storyteller, eloquent and able to draw his listeners into his tale. Although Marlow shares many of his fellow Europeans’ prejudices, he has seen enough of the world and enough debased white men to make him skeptical of imperialism. An example of Marlow being independent-minded and philosophical is when he takes a trip up a river, as a break from working on ships. Marlow describes the trip as a journey back in time, to a “prehistoric earth.” This remark on how he regards

‘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.

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

It is incredible that a single character can bring such wonder, curiosity, and darkness. Anyone who has read further into the novel “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad will see the ironic, and mind-twisting aspects of imperialism, colonialism, racism, savagery, and insanity throughout the book, brought by the unique characters. One of these characters was Marlow, who was a thirty-two-year-old sailor who longed adventure and fulfilled his dreams of exploring the “blank places” of the map as a young man by taking a job as a riverboat captain with the Belgian company as he travels into the dark heart of Africa. The most important character that truly brings those aspects to the story is Kurtz. Repetitively throughout the journey, Marlow hears

     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.

Heart of Darkness Cruelty “Exterminate all the brutes!” this is a comment written in a margin of Kurt’s report to the International society for the Suppression of Savage customs. “Heart of Darkness” is a novel written by Joseph Conrad in which while aboard a boat in the Thames, Charlie Marlow tells his companions about his experience along his journey through the Congo River and the African jungle. Marlow earns a position at an ivory company where he is appalled by the conditions of the black slaves. He frequently perceives about a man named Kurtz who supposedly is at the top of everybody.

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.

At the beginning of the story, the setting is based in Africa, on the Congo river around 1890. This is where Marlow was introduced, along with many other characters. “Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings” (2.5 Conrad). This is where Marlow is traveling up the Congo river, where he absorbs all the noticeable scenery. Later in the story, along with Marlow’s character development, Marlow no longer notices the scenery but only Kurtz. Another setting in Heart of Darkness, is on a ship named The Nellie, which Marlow and the dying Kurtz traveled on down the Thames River. The two, along with the crew, were raveling back to England to try and save Mr.Kurtz’s life. Although Kurtz dies, they discard his body in the Thames River so that he may respect Kurtz’s humanity. The two major settings in this novel describe how the characters feel in their surrounding environment, along with setting the tone for the

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 relationship between man and nature is at times harmonious, and at other times, proves perilous. This explanation behind these varied results, is entirely due to the preparedness of the individual entering the wilderness. After all, there is no other explanation as to why some men emerge from the wild triumphant, and others such as the protagonist in “To Build a Fire” by Jack London perish. Therefore, in the case of “To Build a Fire”, the antagonist is not the wilderness, but instead is the man himself.