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Critical analysis heart of darkness
The analysis of the heart of darkness
The analysis of the heart of darkness
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Charles Marion Russell once said, “A pioneer destroys things and calls it civilization.” A man can enter a perfectly stable system and ruin it by forcing in his own ideals. He takes what works, complicates or changes it, and ends up making it worse than it once was. In Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad proves that although white Europeans view themselves as superior to the black Africans in matters of civilization, they are in fact more savage than the natives they have come to civilize. When Marlow leaves the Company’s station, the first things he notices are natives blasting a cliff and piles of machinery. He sees a black man in tattered clothing ordering around chained prisoners. “I could see every rib; the joints of their limbs were like …show more content…
Location changes, new people arise; but man can always count on mistakes. Conrad uses Kurtz as a surrogate to represent how man may seem mighty on the outside, even though they are actually dying inside. Marlow’s dream after hearing about the mighty Kurtz is just to have a conversation with him. He has not heard the horror that Kurtz is dealing with internally. Nobody has. The natives look up to Kurtz as if he was a god, but he is far from it. As he journeys, Marlow comes to realize, through the many people he has talked with, that Kurtz doesn’t seem to exist. To Kurtz’s cousin, he is a great musician; to the journalist, he is a brilliant politician and leader of men; to his fiancée, he is a great humanitarian and genius. Much to Marlow’s surprise, he is none of these. Kurtz is a suffering man who believes he is the best. He refuses to believe otherwise. “You should have heard him say, 'My ivory.' Oh, yes, I heard him. 'My Intended, my ivory, my station, my river, my - ' everything belonged to him . . . but that was a trifle. The thing was to know what he belonged to, how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own . . . He had taken a high seat amongst the devils of the land - I mean literally.” (73) Kurtz remains mad until the day he dies. His final words are, “The horror! The horror!” (105) This is Kurtz’s final judgment on his life, his actions, mankind in general, and imperialism. His work in the jungle is,
Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, achieved classical recognition for its depiction of humanity’s struggle to reconcile good and evil. From the very opening pages of the Bible man has wrestled with choice, opportunity, propensity and instinct. The knowledge of good and evil has surely caused us to die to simplicity and burdened us with the curse of self-awareness. At first it was a struggle for me to get from page to page because of Conrad’s intricate details.
Darkness permeates every circumstance, scene, and character in Joseph Conrad's novella, Heart of Darkness. Darkness symbolizes the moral confusion that Charlie Marlow encounters, as well as the moral reconciliation he has within himself while searching for Kurtz. Marlow's morals are challenged numerous times throughout the book; on the Congo river and when he returns to Brussels.
It is often said that when considering a work of great literature, the title of such work can be just as important as the context of the story. Authors time and again wait until they have completed the context of their work to give it a title as to make sure this chosen title is the best possible representation of their work. Stated equally as often is that the significance of some of these titles is easy to recognize while in other titles, the significance is only developed gradually. The latter is the case for Joseph Conrad’s Heart Of Darkness. The author implements the literary devices of contrast, repetition and point of view to successfully convey the meaning and symbolism of his title.
...oncealed truth behind imperialism and the conquest of one race for the success and power of another, as presented through characterization, tone, mood and atmosphere. Conrad demonstrates this through the natives being dehumanised and treated with cruelty because they were depicted as the inferior race. Consequently, the majority of Europeans in 1899 assumed a heroic nature took part in the taming of a ‘savage’ race, as a result of which they would gain rewards through the ivory trade. Marlow’s expedition leads him to witness the domination of a culture that led to human rights of another race being stripped away. Conrad presented strong themes in a non-racist way, evoking empathy and sympathy in audiences. Heart of Darkness is a particularly valuable piece of literature as it offers thought-provoking insight into imperialism from the point of view of a European man.
"I don't want to bother you much with what happened to me personally,' [Conrad] began, showing in this remark the weakness of many tellers of tales who seem so often unaware of what their audience would most like to hear" (Conrad, 9). Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad's best-known work, has been examined on many bases more than I can possibly list here, but including imperialism, colonialism, and racism. I would reason that all bases of analysis are perfectly acceptable through which to critique Conrad's novella, or any piece of writing. I would reason this, were some of these bases mainly, racism not taken to an extreme level. In arguing racism, many critics seem to take Heart of Darkness as Conrad's unwavering view on Africa, Africans, life, or whatever else one may please to take it as. I, therefore, propose that Heart of Darkness be taken for what it truly is: a work of fiction set in late 19th century Europe and Africa.
The novel, Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, is literally about Marlow’s journey into the Belgian Congo, but symbolically about the discovery of his heart and soul during his journey, only to find that it is consumed by darkness. He realizes that the man he admired and respected most, is really demonic and that he may be just like him. He is able to come to this realization however, before it takes the best of him.
“I had him at my back – a help – an instrument.” (Conrad 76) This is Marlow’s response to the death of his African native helmsmen on his steamboat. This quote displays his view of the black natives as instruments used to achieve a goal. According to Marlow the natives are a lesser race and are uncivilized brutes or animals. Marlow, Kurtz and the manager portray how power and greed, as well as the regard they hold for the native’s lives affects them in a negative way. They hold no regard for the locals and they view them as property and a way to gain prestige. The initial goal of the English colonists was or should have been to actually help the natives to become civilized, but when the English realize they can do what they want due to the
1. What is the difference between a. and a. The use of savagery is meant to contrast the civilized nations with the undeveloped nations of the late nineteenth century. In the beginning of the story, Marlow states, “Sandbanks, marshes, forests, savages,—precious little to eat fit for a civilized man, nothing but Thames water to drink.” Alluding to the Congo and her uncivilized people, Marlow embarks by stating this, only to change his mind as he continues down the river.
This story hints at horrors that Marlow is incapable of describing, which leaves the reader to imagine actions that are outside of normal everyday life. The voyage that Marlow has taken has been long and exhausting. It’s an adventure for him. He has experienced a great deal of confrontation with the natives, jungle dangers and savagery.
Upon arriving in Africa, Marlow notices a group of African slaves huddled near a grove of trees, seemingly dying of disease and starvation. Marlow’s “horror-struck” reaction is the first indication of his conscience – he recognizes that the condition of these people is terribly immoral (Conrad 14). Later, Marlow learns that Kurtz, an employee of the ivory trading firm operating out of the inner Congo, has raided African villages for ivory, even enlisting Africans to participate in these raids against their fellow people. These violent raids, along with the human heads that Kurtz used as ornamentation around his living area, convince Marlow that Kurtz is a man who “lacked restraint” and was “hollow at the core,” a “deficiency” that Kurtz may not recognize in himself until death (53). With this description, Marlow critiques colonialism while characterizing Kurtz as a ruthless, violent representative of the European imperialists. If Marlow could recognize the atrocities of colonialism and had the moral sense to abhor them, as his reaction indicates, then Marlow was fully equipped to assume the role of an active witness, as opposed to a bystander, and speak out about this behavior in an attempt to mitigate the present oppression. Although Conrad structured Heart of Darkness as
Once Marlow enter the wilderness, he encounters the “savages” and the corruption within the company. Marlow understand that the natives “were not enemies, they were not criminals,” disproving the justification that imperialists need to civilize the savages. The cruelty that the natives endure were “nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation,” revealing that Marlow recognizes the consequences of imperialism. Marlow sees such corruption and evilness hidden behind the idea of civilizing the savages, but he again does nothing to prevent the act of cruelty. Understanding the immorality of Europeans presents values in Marlow, but his inaction contradicts his belief because he allows the corruption to continue, which allows evilness to further spread its influence. Although the forest exposes Marlow to corruption, he retains feelings for others as the crew travels further into the heart of Africa. The crew encounters other natives who resist the crew’s advancement and kill the helmsman, and Marlow “missed him … an instrument. It was a kind of partnership… like a claim of distant kinship.” In contrast to other Europeans, Marlow expresses acceptance that all men are the same by claiming kinship with a native although Marlow confirms that fact that Europeans and natives are dissimilar. Essentially at the core of existence, everyone is the same so Marlow
Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is a complex novel which alludes to the evils of the human condition. Through the eyes of the narrator, Marlow we are able to observe early European imperialism in central Africa. The secondary protagonist in the novel, Kurtz, is a European idealist who is left indefinitely traumatized by his presence in the Congo. As the reader follows Marlow’s journey to the “heart of darkness” we learn more and more about the secondary protagonist. His ideas are drastically changed as before meeting Kurtz- Marlow romanticized his life. When he finally meets him, he learns that Kurtz is not what others claimed. Through literary elements such as paradoxes and diction, the reader
“ The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.” (Conrad 65) So stated Marlow as though this was his justification for ravaging the Congo in his search for ivory. Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness shows the disparity between the European ideal of civilization and the reality of it as is evidenced by the domination, torture, exploitation and dehumanization of the African population. Heart of Darkness is indicative of the evil and greed in humanity as personified by Kurtz and Marlow.
The white man is evil, or so says Joseph Conrad in his novel Heart of Darkness, which describes the colonial transformation of the symbolically angelic African wilderness into an evil haven for the white man. The novel presents a psychological journey into the core of evil or "heart of darkness" in one's own mind, as he or she progresses through the jungle. The reader follows Marlow, the novel's narrator, along such a journey. His psychological changes as he approaches the heart of darkness are evident, as the reader observes, in his views of the African natives, lying and Kurtz.
Heart of Darkness is a story in which racism presents itself so deliberately that, for many, the dilemma of race must be tackled before anything else in the book may be dealt with. Conrad used derogatory, outdated and offensive terminology for devaluation of people’s color as savages. This use of language disturbs many readers who read this book.