Heart Of Darkness Critical Analysis

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is a novella that highlights the dark side of European imperialistic ideals through the eyes of an experienced seaman, Charlie Marlow. Marlow tells his story to four other unnamed men while on board the Nellie sitting at the mouth of the Thames River. The story is told through the Narrator, who serves as the voice of the four other men on board. Marlow’s story is of European conquest, “which mostly means taking (the earth) away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter nose than ourselves” (Conrad 6) to gain profit through ivory trade. Although his intent is not to tell his story of freshwater exploration, he explains the effect that his journeys had on him and how colonization affected the European settlers and the native “cannibals”.

Charlie Marlow, a young sailor, begins his adventure in the core of Africa piloting a steamboat up the Congo River. He becomes acquainted with the managers at the Outer Station and is told of an extraordinary man named Kurtz, a first class trader and commander of the Inner Station, who is said to obtain more ivory than the rest of the Company combined. Marlow discovers that many people within the Company are quietly hypocritical, being in opposition Kurtz for his nonconformist techniques, even though he is known to contend for humanizing, improving and instructing the indigenous population. It is then that Marlow’s obsession and intrigue with this “remarkable man” (Conrad 104) that is publicly despised despite being respected and virtuous, begins.

After many months idolizing Kurtz, Marlow arrives at the Station to discover that his righteous image of Kurtz has been shattered. Stakes flaunting the decapitated heads of rebellious natives surrou...

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By the last pages of Heart of Darkness, “the horror! the horror!” (Conrad 96) of the colonization and imperialism of the Congo creates a clear message against wrongful suppression of indigenous populations. Through interesting use of symbolism, motifs and foreshadowing, Conrad pleads against corruption of good intent for wealth and how absolute power ultimately leads to madness. The use of a framed narrative, multiple perspectives are offered which gives the reader more information and multiple points of view to have a better understanding of the text. The mix of Victorian values, and modernist ideals, such as multiple perspectives, combine to create a text that appeals to the modern writer and reader that demonstrates that the dangers of the Congo and its lure to the dark side of the jungle that prove that when one enters, it is impossible to leave unscathed.