Heart Of Darkness Literary Analysis

The horrors of the past do not fade with time - whether the horrors are contained in one’s lifetime or occurred decades before. In Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey, characters are depicted as they struggle to overcome the demons of their personal histories and of history itself. With persistent reflection, both characters achieve a clearer understanding of their pasts, allowing them to transform according to the truths they have discovered. Conrad and Trethewey use water as a symbol to express the shift in their characters’ identities: Marlow from apathetic detachment to passive awareness and Trethewey’s speaker from confused turmoil to a defined identity.

In his novella Heart of Darkness, Conrad uses

When Marlow visits the Intended, he is unable to maintain his usual apathy, instead choosing to divulge in a lie to comfort the woman. Conrad includes Marlow’s uncharacteristic lie to reveal that someone as apathetic as Marlow can be deeply affected by the horrors of imperialism. The suffering he witnessed did have an effect, causing him to spare the Intended of more pain about Kurtz’s death. By having a character as indifferent as Marlow develop some sympathy, Conrad shows that the horrors of imperialism will change even the most jaded person. Conrad expresses that not only are the victims of imperialism hurt, but the European imperialists who witness and commit these atrocities are also deeply damaged. Not only do the waters of the Congo River wear down Marlow’s apathy, but it always washes away his previous beliefs about imperialism. Marlow initially believes imperialism to be a noble cause, fueled by man’s desire for adventure. However, when he enters the Congo, he sees the savage, destructive reality of imperialism. He attempts to maintain his hope in imperialism until he reaches the end of the river and discovers that not even the great Mr. Kurtz can manage to fulfill imperialism as Marlow had hoped. The “moral shock” Marlow experiences at the inner station is a volatile response compared to his earlier

By telling his story to his acquaintances, Marlow is attempting to accomplish what Trethewey did - gaining clarity by reflecting on the past. Trethewey was also haunted as Marlow was, yet she manages to accept the past rather than merely acknowledge it. Marlow’s perspective on his past becomes clearer after the completion of his journey, but he has not fully comprehended his role in imperialism. While Marlow was complicit in the horrors of imperialism, Trethewey was a victim to the atrocities of racism. As a victim, Trethewey managed to accept and forgive the South for the wrongs against her. As a perpetrator, Marlow is not able to find the same peace that Trethewey reaches, even after careful introspection. At the end of Native Guard, Trethewey describes herself firmly planted in her “native land,” physically connecting herself to the land where she once had no foundation (Trethewey line 34). In contrast, Marlow remains floating on a source of water, merely “tracing” along the outside “of a large grand circle of awareness” (Guerard 297). With each telling of his tale, Marlow achieves more clarity, circling closer and closer to the truth of his experience. Since he has not reached the same closure that Trethewey has accomplished he still is haunted by “a darkness