journeyhod In Quest of Self in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness

In Quest of Self in Heart of Darkness

In Conrad's Heart of Darkness Marlow comes to the Congo for experience and self in the ancient belief that a man is shaped by what he does, that character is formed by what happens to one. But surrounding all of man's efforts in the Congo is a presence: Kurtz listened to it and went mad, and Marlow recognizes it but refuses to listen, neutralizes the appeal of the unknown and survives Kurtz, who succumbed to the fascinating wilderness.

In 1899, eleven years earlier than "The Secret Sharer," Conrad published Heart of Darkness, the tale that "delineates the archetypal pattern he continued to refine through his career" (Andreach,1970:44). In this obscure story, he wants to communicate his great conviction that, even if man fails in his attempts at authenticity, the very struggle to attain it gives intensity to an otherwise plain and inauthentic existence.

Heart of Darkness can be seen as a journey--Marlow's mythical journey in search of the self, in order to bring back a new truth, and, through all the pages of the novel, the main character relates his experiences journeying up the Congo River in quest of another white man, Kurtz. This enigmatic man was received by the black natives as if he were a god, but perhaps because he has gone into the jungle without knowing himself, and unprepared for the ordeal, his wrong conduct took him beyond the limits of his heart, paying the price in madness and death. On the contrary, Marlow did not transgress his limits and came back without fully understanding his experience, and although the heart of darkness tried to exercise its influence on him, too, he was able to restrain himself--he recognized its fascination and its ...

... middle of paper ...

...g: Joseph Conrad and the Literature of Personality. New York & London: Columbia University Press.

Guerard, Albert J. (1979) Conrad the Novelist. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

Hawthorn, Jeremy (1990) Joseph Conrad: Narrative Technique and Ideological Commitment. London & New York: Routledge.

Henricksen, Bruce (1992) Nomadic Voices: Conrad and the Subject of Narrative. Urbana & Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

Hubbard, Francis A. 1984 (1978) Theories of Action in Conrad. Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research P.

Junter, Allan (1983) Joseph Conrad and the Ethics of Darwinism. London & Camberra: Croom Helm.

Kirschner, Paul (1968) Conrad: The Psychologist as Artist. Edinburgh : Oliver & Boyd.

Scheick, William J. (1994) The Ethos of Romance at the Turn of the Century. Austin: Univ.Texas Press.