Heart Of Darkness The Image Of Darkness
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Submitted by mejdal on 06/30/2008 05:21 PM
- Category: Biographies
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Heart Of Darkness The Image Of Darkness
Heart of Darkness
The Image of Darkness
In Heart of Darkness' by Joseph Conrad, we are taken on a journey into Africa at the turn of the 20th century. Disguised behind two narrators, Conrad tells a story about the clash between cultures, groups and individuals, and about the horrors that took place in Congo as a result of the Belgian colonization. Marlow, a sailor, is sent on a steam boat up the Congo River by a Trading Society which is extracting ivory from Africa. On his way he encounters both natives and white men, and he sees the effects of the exploitation of the land and the people. Throughout his journey, Marlow hears stories about an agent named Kurtz who used to be the best at acquiring ivory, but who is now very ill. It becomes a tale of the inhumanity of the colonizers, and of the constant battle between good and evil, light and dark, and how the line between the two can become blurred.
From the very beginning of the book it is clear that darkness' plays a vital role. The title itself refers to a heart of darkness, the meaning of which can be interpreted in any number of ways. The most obvious is Marlows journey into the dark continent, but the thought of a heart' of darkness is equally interesting. Can darkness', an undefinable thing, have a heart? Or do all hearts contain darkness? Marlow tells his story to a group of men while they are sitting on a boat on the river Thames, a river that was once mysterious and dark itself as Marlow tells his listeners: '"And this also," said Marlow suddenly, "has been one of the dark places of the earth." The meaning is clear; Britain too was once considered a savage land in the eyes of others. We, as listeners to his story, are forced to see ourselves as the colonized as well as the colonizers, which makes the tales of how the natives are treated even more relevant.
The darkness also refers to the people of the story. The natives, who are of course...
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