Use of Light and Darkness in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness
Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness contrasts light and darkness, to represent the civilized and uncivilized sides of the world. Conrad uses light to represent the civilized side of humanity while contrasting the dark with the uncivilized and savage. Throughout the thematic stages of the novel, that is the Thames river London, the company's office in Belgium, the journey to the "heart of darkness" and the conclusion, light and dark is used to represent these sides of humanity, but on a deeper level many assumptions of darkness and light are challenged, with the appearance of light and dark, and in turn good and evil contrasting with the reality.
From the initial setting, the Thames river, London, on the "cruising yawl" the Nellie, light and darkness are used to symbolize the good and evil side of humanity. Marlow's tale of the Congo is where light and darkness is used to represent the civilized and uncivilized. Marlow talks of the lights that are reflected in the water, creating the idea that the members of the Nellie are civilized. The lights of London are again used represent the civilized nature of the society, with connotations of "good" coming from the bright lights of civilization. However this is then contrasted with the juxtaposition of the "light", with Marlow saying - "And this also has been one of the dark places of the Earth". By saying this Marlow is portraying London as a city with once the same darkness of civilization, of which the civilized Roman's brought light to. This establishment of light representing the civilized demonstrates the dominant assumptions of the white society, later in the novel it is demonstrated that civilized does no...
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...story. However Conrad also challenges many assumptions of darkness being solely associated with evil, and light being solely associated with good, as throughout the novel the light of the white society is critiqued, representing the evil side of humanity.
Works Cited and Consulted
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Middlesex, England: Penguin Publishers, 1983.
Gillon, Adam. (1982). Joseph Conrad. Twayne's English Author Series: Number 333. Kinley E. Roby, ed. Boston: Twayne.
"Joseph Conrad." The Encarta 1998 Encyclopedia Online. Microsoft, 1998.
Kunitz, Stanley J. "Joseph Conrad." Twentieth Century Authors: Vol. T. New York: H.W. Wilson Company, 1942. 307-9
Stape, J.H.. The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Taylor, Derek. Conrad's Heart of Darkness. The Explicator. No.4 Summer 1998: 195-8.
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Conrad uses light and dark imagery to help create the setting for the story; light represents civilization while darkness suggests the uncivilized. The novel opens on the deck of a boat called the Nellie, as we are introduced to the passengers we are told how the sun is slowly fading, and soon darkness will engulf the area. This image is Conrad?s first use of light and darkness; he uses it to foreshadow the ultimate darkness Marlow will face. Conrad is warning his readers to be careful, lest they let down their guard and allow the darkness to come them. The other character in the book, Kurtz, is taken over by the evil embodied in the darkness. During Kurtz?s journey into the heart of darkness the isolation, darkness and power all made him lose control of himself and allowed the darkness to take over.
Wright, Walter F. Romance and Tragedy in Joseph Conrad. New York: Russell & Russell, 1966.
Ryf, Robert. "Joseph Conrad." Columbia Essays on Modern Writers. New York: Columbia UP, 1970. 17-21.
Throughout the entire novella, Joseph Conrad uses simple events to describe significant dark and light imagery. As the story begins, a man named Marlow describes his journey into the depths of the African Congo. He is in search of a man name Kurtz who is an ivory trader. His experiences throughout his journey are physically difficult to overcome. However, even more complex, was the journey that his heart and mind experienced throughout the long ride into the Congo. Marlow’s surroundings such as the setting, characters, and symbols each contain light and dark images that shape the central theme of the novel.
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of darkness and other tales. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Print.
The most obvious contrast found in Heart of Darkness is between that of light and dark. In the beginning of the novel when the sun set upon London, the city began to light up yet the narrator describes the light as a "lurid glare under the stars" (Conrad 6). The lights from the city illuminated the Thames River. Because London is described as being light, the light then symbolizes civilization, or at least Conrad's view of civilization. Conrad's view of civilization is one of great despise. Civilization is a place where evil is ever present but ignored and people believe they know everything. The light is the knowledge that we have gained through exploration and the civilizing of places that have not yet been civilized. In contrast there is the darkness. Represented in the novel by Africa and the Congo River, the darkness is the evil that lurks in the unknown. The darkness is full of savages and cannibals. It is the uncivilized and uninhabited part of the world where people eat people and the savages lurk in the trees and in the darkness. Africa is the "heart of darkness," the place where man's inner evil is brought out in the open and is displayed through their thoughts and actions, such as those on Marlow's boat, letting the bullets fly into the jungle without reason or need.
Heart of Darkness describes a voyage to Africa, common for the British still, despite the horrific treatment which was apparent of colonization. The chaotic, stream-of-consciousness style Conrad took on helped to display the confusion, and made the reader have to interpret for themselves what they thought the writer meant. Conrad experiments with this style, leaving some sentences without ending: "not a sentimental pretense but an idea;…something you can set up…and offer a sacrifice to…." (Conrad, Longman p. 2195), a very choppy form of literature and causes the reader to fill in the holes and interpret themselves, alone. Conrad skips about from talking of the "two women knitted black wool feverishly" at the gate of the city (of hell), to his aunt which he feels women are "out of touch with truth," to how the British are as "weak-eyed devil(s) of a rapacious and pitiless folly" (Conrad, Longman pp. 2198, 2199, & 2202). Conrad's mind moves about as ours do along a large duration of literary monologue to convey to the reader the author's ideas, as interpreted by the reader.
From the very moment Marlow speaks the reader is presented with light and dark imagery. It should be noted, however, that darkness seems to dominate. The light and dark, being binary oppositions, come to represent other binary oppositions, such as civilized and uncivilized, and of course good and evil. The primitive 'savages' are described as dark, both literally in regards to skin tone, but also in attitude and inwardly. Marlow calls the natives at the first station "black shadows of disease and starvation" (Conrad 20). A little further into the text, Marlow is horrified by what he is seeing, by the darkness he and the reader are being presented with. These are both excellent examples of the negativity towards the natives throughout the book. So, the darkness of the natives is a metaphor for their supposed incivility, evilness and primitiveness. However, if the reader looks a little deeper, they can see that this darkness also ...
Initially, the story endorses the conventional views of Western society, exhibiting light as a positive and reassuring presence without truly comprehending the truth it reveals. Before Marlow begins his story, the sky around the boat he reclines on is full of light.
Wright, Walter F. "Ingress to The Heart of Darkness ." Romance and Tragedy in Joseph Conrad . New York: Russell and Russell, 1966. Pp. 143-160.
Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is a great example of a Modernist novel because of its general obscurity. The language is thick and opaque. The novel is littered with words such as: inconceivable, inscrutable, gloom. Rather than defining characters in black and white terms, like good and bad, they entire novel is in different shades of gray. The unfolding of events takes the reader between many a foggy bank; the action in the book and not just the language echoes tones of gray.
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness 3rd Ed. Ed. Robert Kimbrough. New York: Norton Critical, 1988.
The opposite of darkness is always light giving the impression that the darkness in the story has the chance of becoming something else. The darkness in the jungles of the African Congo represent something that is uncivilized and untamed. As the reader continues throughout the story it becomes clear that these characteristics are not of the land but rather of the savage and dark natives. It becomes clear that Marlow shares many of his fellow European prejudices but through his own experiences encountering scenes of torture, cruelty, and near-slavery has made him a skeptic of imperialism. This is made clear when Marlow states, "The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look not it too much."