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Heart of Darkness Critical Analysis
Heart of Darkness Critical Analysis
Analysis of Conrad's book "Heart of Darkness
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A Comparison of Heart of Darkness and The Secret Agent
This essay consists of two separate parts but the intention is that both these parts will prove to be relevant from the point of view of what this essay sets out to study. The first part will present Joseph Conrad's life and some of his works and the latter part will consist of a comparison of two of Conrad's works, Heart of Darkness and The Secret Agent. In this essay I will begin from two assumptions, namely, that both the works mentioned above include clearly identifiable similarities in their narration, theme and method, and, that Conrad's own experiences and views have had great effect on both works.
The method of this essay is firstly to discuss Conrad's life and then to try to find out what kind of similarities and differences Heart of Darkness and The Secret Agent contain and also to try to discover how Conrad's own experiences relate to these works ( and his other works in general). I will also try to relate Conrad's works to some other writers' styles whenever I am capable of doing so despite of my poor knowledge of Conrad's contemporaries and despite of the fact that I was unable to get hold of such works as Conrad and His Contemporaries which surely would have been useful. My sources for carrying out this task are Conrad himself, his critics and my own opinions/interpretations of the two works by Conrad.
Joseph Conrad
In dealing with the life of Joseph Conrad I will focus on the period before he settled in England and started his actual writing career and so I will not present his life after his trip to the Congo and nor will I deal with how it affected him afterwards. I take this approach simply because in my opinio...
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...r to be able to understand what is happening.
In conclusion, both The Secret Agent and Heart of Darkness are loosely based on reality; the former on a historical incident and the latter on Conrad's experiences of Congo. Both works have surprisingly much in common and, in my opinion, are also great works of art.
Works Cited
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. 1902. New York: Dover Publications Inc., 1990.
Conrad, Joseph. The Secret Agent (1907) New York: Dover Publications Inc., 1990.
Fleishman, Avrom. Condrad's Politics: Community and Anarchy in the Fiction of Joseph Conrad. Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1967.
O'Prey, Paul. 'Introduction', 'Heart of Darkness'. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983).
Warner, Oliver Joseph Conrad Longmans, Green and Co., London, New York, Toronto. 1950.
Watts, Cedric. 'Heart of Darkness.' The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad. Ed. J.H. Stape. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. 45-62.
Hay, Eloise Knapp. The Political Novels of Joseph Conrad: a Critical Study. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1972. 120. Print.
The novel Heart of Darkness features several influential themes that elicit a plethora of emotions in readers. However, there is one particular theme that is displayed predominantly throughout the entire book. The author of this novel, Joseph Conrad, features this theme by using different literary devices. In Conrad's novel, he uses the literary elements of symbolism, figurative language, and Biblical allusions to demonstrate the theme of human depravity when removed from civilization.
Without personal access to authors, readers are left to themselves to interpret literature. This can become challenging with more difficult texts, such as Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness. Fortunately, literary audiences are not abandoned to flounder in pieces such as this; active readers may look through many different lenses to see possible meanings in a work. For example, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness may be deciphered with a post-colonial, feminist, or archetypal mindset, or analyzed with Freudian psycho-analytic theory. The latter two would effectively reveal the greater roles of Kurtz and Marlow as the id and the ego, respectively, and offer the opportunity to draw a conclusion about the work as a whole.
Joseph Conrad’s own experiences during his trip through the Congo helped him provide a foundation for the writing of Heart of Darkness. In 1890, Conrad took a job as a captain on the river steamer Kinshasa. Before Conrad took this job, he had worked for the French merchant navy as a way to escape Russian military service and also to escape the emotional troubles that had plagued him. Conrad had been in a financial crisis that was resolved with help from his uncle. After this series of events, Conrad joined the British merchant navy at the beckoning of his uncle and took the job as the captain of a steamboat in the Congo River. An important fact to remember is that Conrad was a young and inexperienced man when he was exposed to the harsh and dangerous life of a sailor. His experiences in the West Indies and especially in the Belgium Congo were eye opening and facilitated his strong outlooks that are reflected in the book Heart of Darkness. Conrad’s journey through the Belgian Congo gave him the experiences and knowledge to write about a place that most Europeans would never see in their lives.
In the opening scenes of the documentary film "Hearts of Darkness-A Filmmaker's Apocalypse," Eleanor Coppola describes her husband Francis's film, "Apocalypse Now," as being "loosely based" on Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Indeed, "loosely" is the word; the period, setting, and circumstances of the film are totally different from those of the novella. The question, therefore, is whether any of Conrad's classic story of savagery and madness is extant in its cinematic reworking. It is this question that I shall attempt to address in this brief monograph by looking more closely at various aspects of character, plot, and theme in each respective work.
Throughout its entirety, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness utilizes many contrasts and paradoxes in an attempt to teach readers about the complexities of both human nature and the world. Some are more easily distinguishable, such as the comparison between civilized and uncivilized people, and some are more difficult to identify, like the usage of vagueness and clarity to contrast each other. One of the most prominent inversions contradicts the typical views of light and dark. While typically light is imagined to expose the truth and darkness to conceal it, Conrad creates a paradox in which darkness displays the truth and light blinds us from it.
The Freudian Model in Heart of Darkness. In my essay I intend to prove Joseph Conrad's use of the Freudian model of the human mind, as portrayed in his characterization of Marlowe, Kurtz, and the "wilderness". Further, using that model I will explain Conrad's ambiguous tone in Heart of Darkness. First, I must define each figure in Conrad's novel with its appropriate Freudian psyche.
To understand a play, you must first understand the fundamentals for the play: protagonist, antagonist, exposition, rising action, crisis, climax and resolution. I will examine Hamlet by William Shakespeare. This is a great example for the purpose of this paper it provides a clear and great examples.
An awareness of the historical, sociological, and philosophical climate prevalent during the time in which Heart of Darkness was written plays a key role in understanding the significance of Conrad's complex work. Joseph Conrad began work on Heart of Darkness in 1898 and completed it the following year in 1899. During this time the impressionist movement was in full swing, European colonization was at its peak, racial tensions were rapidly increasing, and man was confronted with the fall of the traditional view that held man as the eminent ruler the world. Each of these issues significantly influenced Joseph Conrad's writing of the novel as well as its collective meaning for all mankind.
Working thesis: In Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad employs the impressionistic technique in his writing style, using the polarity of light and dark to set the tone and mood of the narrative, to convey meaning and to demonstrate the duality of man. The beauty of Heart of Darkness is the impressionistic language Conrad uses, allowing readers to experience the novella for themselves, and leaving the story open to interpretation. Introduction Joseph Conrad’s highly debated novella, Heart of Darkness, demonstrates an impressionistic style of work in which Conrad uses words to paint a visual depiction of a man’s journey to discovering self. It is “an impression taken from life.” (Garnett 307).
Karl, Frederick Robert. Joseph Conrad: The Three Lives. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1979.
* Conrad, Joseph. “Heart of Darkness” in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, M.H. Abrams, general editor. (London: W.W. Norton, 1962, 2000)
Beckoning readers closer, the gloomy foreboding of a mysterious darkness has typically been indicative of an antagonist or a horror that is to follow, and the glory of a shining light has signified a positive connotation. The pair is often utilized to express an author’s ideas and theme and Joseph Conrad uses the two paradigms liberally in his interpretation of European colonialism in Heart of Darkness. While Conrad employs the typical binary of light and darkness as positive and negative forces, respectively, he also challenges this notion by exposing the contradictions of misdeeds done in light and the portrayal of darkness as a sanctuary.
An Analysis of Conrad's Heart of Darkness In the twentieth century, nihilistic themes, such as moral degeneration, man's bestial instincts at the core of the soul, and cosmic purposelessness, have preoccupied many works of literature and philosophy. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is no exception. In his novel, Conrad uses a unique writing style to explore man's fundamental fallibility and moral confusion in an existential world through his character's journey on the Congo River.