evilhod Uncovering Evil in Joseph Conrad's Heart of 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.

European prejudice against Africans is shown through the journey that the protagonist ‘Marlow’ takes through Africa, he describes all the natives he encounters as savages, comparing them to animals and creatures of the jungle. In the book, Marlow discovers a death pit (an open pit where the natives go to die). He describes the Africans by saying:

There is an abundance of literature in which characters become caught between colliding cultures. Often, these characters experience a period of growth from their exposure to a culture that’s dissimilar to their own. Such is the case with Marlow, Joseph Conrad’s infamous protagonist from ‘Heart of Darkness’. Marlow sets off to Africa on an ivory conquest and promptly found himself sailing into the heart of the Congo River. Along the way he is faced with disgruntled natives, cannibals, and the ominous and foreboding landscape. Marlow’s response to these tribulations is an introspective one, in which he calls into question his identity. This transcending of his former self renders the work as a whole a

Joseph Conrad 's Heart of Darkness is both a dramatic tale of an arduous trek into the Belgian Congo at the turn of the twentieth century and a symbolic journey into the deepest recesses of human nature. On a literal level, through Marlow 's narration, Conrad provides a searing indictment of European colonial exploitation inflicted upon African natives. By employing several allegoric symbols this account depicts the futility of the European presence in Africa.

In Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness, the cultural collisions illustrates the struggles Marlow experiences as he questions the nature of evil in humanity.

The novel Heart of Darkness is filled with things to be discussed and analyzed - a main topic of discussion through the novel is the topic of race. Throughout the novel, the main characters of Kurtz and Marlow have interactions with the natives and their general environment. They, in the story, are both white Europeans, traveling to the Congo for commercial purposes. By looking at the countless interactions the characters have with the natives, it can be determined that the novel Heart of Darkness shows the racist and superior attitudes of white Europeans during this time period through the general outlook that Kurtz has on the Congo and the natives, as well as the numerous negative interactions and the specific language used by Marlow towards

     Each character has a special role in the novel; Kurtz and Marlow are the most important, through these two characters we are able to see how good and evil balance each other out. Marlow?s journey into the heart of darkness can also be seen as a journey into his own soul. He was in search of the darkest of objects, the ivory. Unlike Kurtz, Marlow was able to withstand the darkness from controlling him. Kurtz soul became the darkness and caused him to forget everything else there was to life. His last words were not that of love but rather of hate, ?The horrors the horrors.?

Conrad also implements minor characters to further the unexpected distinction between dark and light, black and white. The white pilgrims are portrayed as materialistic, ivory-hungry opportunists with "black" souls; their behavior is violent and savage. Contrariwise, the black natives are civil, spiritual, and have "white" souls.  In the beginning of the novel, Conrad creates the fellow seamen who accompany Marlow on his present journey and listen to his tale of the Congo to establish the contrast between the materialistic and the spiritual. The fellow sailors do not understand Marlow's tale and chastise him throughout, showing their reluctance and inability to

Inherent inside every human soul is a savage evil side that remains repressed by society. Often this evil side breaks out during times of isolation from our culture, and whenever one culture confronts another. History is loaded with examples of atrocities that have occurred when one culture comes into contact with another. Whenever fundamentally different cultures meet, there is often a fear of contamination and loss of self that leads us to discover more about our true selves, often causing perceived madness by those who have yet to discover their own self.  Joseph Conrad’s book, The Heart of Darkness is a story about Man’s journey into his self, the discoveries to be made there and about

    Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness portrays an image of Africa that is dark and inhuman.  Not only does he describe the actual, physical continent of Africa as "so hopeless and so dark, so impenetrable to human thought, so pitiless to human weakness" (Conrad 94), as though the continent could neither breed nor support any true human life, but he also manages to depict Africans as though they are not worthy of the respect commonly due to the white man.  At one point the main character, Marlow, describes one of the paths he follows: "Can't say I saw any road or any upkeep, unless the body of a middle-aged negro, with a bullet-hole in the forehead, upon which I

Marlow tells his shipmates on the boat (the Nelly) that the natives passed him “within six inches, without a glance, with that complete, deathlike indifference of unhappy savages” (16). Marlow’s story of his experience exhibits how the Europeans captured the natives and forced them to work; to strip their homeland of its resources and natural beauty. When the Europeans colonize Africa, they do not want to help the African people, but exploit them and put them to work for their own desire of obtaining ivory, rubber, and other resources and goods. As the Europeans imperialize the area, they do not build culture or assist in the development of the Congo region, but break down culture as they enslave the natives and take away their rights, along with stripping the area of resources and natural, earthly beauty, which is conveyed through the cruel physical treatment towards the natives. This treatment is also presented through the literary devices that Conrad decides to use to reveal the experiences of the natives to the

　　In Heart of Darkness, it can be inferred that the Native Africans are supposed to represent the primitive savages and the white Europeans are supposed to represent the civilized men. However, what we hear from Marlow’s tale is that the white Europeans were the ones acting like savages, whereas the “savages”, such as the cannibals, acted more respectable, even though these cannibals were exactly that: cannibals who ate human flesh. However, Marlow was surprised to find that they were able to control their urges aboard the ship and seemed to operate on a code. He will eventually realize the darkness that exists within all man.

They weren't 'dark' until the coming of the 'light'. The reader is presented with conflicting and complex meanings, and is affected accordingly. They become sympathetic toward the natives, despite the fact that they are supposed to be evil and uncivilized. Similarly, the metaphor of light representing the white man's nature of civility and goodness is flawed. The white man is civilized, but is that really a good thing? The reader can see that although the white men are civilized, they are brutes that are interested only in capital gain. The ivory that they hoard is white too. Again, the contradictory nature of these metaphors produces interesting effects on the reader. They pity that which is dark, which is only in darkness because of the light. They pity that which they are not really supposed to pity, and they are being asked to all throughout the text. It can be seen then, that the darkness and lightness as metaphors in regards to the natives and the white men, creates effects for the reader that are only strengthened, as they get further through the text.

A famous criticism of Conrad’s novella is called An Image of Africa, which was written by an African native named Chinua Achebe. In Achebe’s criticisms of Heart of Darkness, he points out the difference between descriptions of the European woman and the African woman, who was Kurtz’s mistress. The narrator describes the European woman as being calm and mature, and the African woman as being “savage” (341 Norton). Even though many writers claim that Marlow is kind to the Africans by bringing light to their situation, the real problem does not lie in his description of their situations, but his descriptions of the people themselves (30 Heart of darkness Interpretations).

In the book, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad we are introduced to the concept of light and dark as they relate to the people of Africa and the people of Europe. In the beginning of the book the intro gives an insight into the journey that the main character, Marlow, is about to embark on. Conrad symbolically introduces the sun setting on the river as Marlow enters the mouth of the Thames. Conrad reveals this allegory by indicating that Marlow is about to enter a dark place morally, and physically as a reference to the Negro people of Africa. Light and dark are used by Conrad to represent morality and immorality.