TSR Wiki > Study Help > Subjects and Revision > Revision Notes > English > Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
Narration
Marlow, and also an un-named person who Marlow is telling the story to (frame narrator)
Projection of the consciousness of an individual protagonist.
Plot
Postcolonial parable (the intrusion and colonization of minds with ideas)
- Journey of Marlow toward the center of the Self and the center of the Earth
- The story of a night sea journey of exploration and self disovery of its narrator, Marlow, who is able to see himself and civilization more clearly against the dark backdrop of the center of the earth
- Journey is a decent into the earth, followed by a return to the light the archetypal myth dramatized in literature: the story of an essentially solitary journey involving a profound change in the voyager.
Importance of setting
Retelling on ship on Thames about the jorney into Congo
Character development
- Importance of Kurtz
- Darkening of Marlow and Kurtz
Literary devices & Symbolism
- Thames connects England to the Congo economically and also through shared humanity
- Light/dark imagery (reversed at times)
- Images of modernity (and its breakdown) contrast with images of the primitive
- 19th century images of Africa
- Africa a place of physical darkness
- Rainforests of the Congo
- Slithering, shining blackness
- Kurtz's darkness
- Paganism
- Disease
- Insanity
- Africans seen as primitive, savage, and primordial
- Cannibals
- Sexuality.
Imperialism
- Kurtz is the dark shadow of European imperialism
- Time moves backwards as they go futher into the continent
- "Shadow" used to describe Kurtz
- Kurtz is the shadow of Marlow, but of Europe and its imperialism
- Marlow symbolizes the uncorrupted me that travel to foreign lands to help the uncivilized become cultured - doesn't have courage or power to stop abuses
- Manager is the epitomy of the negative effects of Imperialism --good health symbolizes the everlastingness of Europeans who invaded Africa and their ability to continually come to Africa and rape it of its natural resources
- Kurtz symbolizes Europe (his mother and father were half-French and half Europe. His terminal illness represents the eventual death of imperialism due to its inability to adapt and respect the culture and peoples of the invaded country.
- Kurtz painting symbolizes the blind and foolish ivory company forging it's way into the jungle and enlightening the savage natives w/o realizing the detramental effect they have on Africa--it also shows Kurts understanding of his role and position in the continent.
- Red - English territories abroad
- Yellow - Beligium's sphere of influence
- Black/white - good/evil
- White invaders have black souls
- Black natives have white souls
- Marlow's predecessor killed over two black hens
- White women weaving black cotton
- Black women weaving white cotton
- Starving boy with white rope around his neck - white men choking people of Africa.
Relationships between characters
- Kurtz is Marlow's alter-ego
- Kurtz and Marlow both seduced by unkown/undiscovered Africa
- The female savage is a description of the feminine nature of the soul of man, a reflection of the wilderness (she is the wilderness)
- Marlow creates an image of Kurtz possibly in the image of the man he himself would have liked to be
- He thinks that Kurtz can tell him things about himself which he does not know
- Uses ambigous language when talking to the intended.
Universality
- Imagery universally known in west - assumed to be taken from Africa.
Major themes
- Imperialism
- Colonization
- Humanity
- Truth.
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