Write briefly about ‘darkness’ in Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness

    In Joseph Conrad's novella "The Heart of Darkness," the theme of darkness is a prevalent motif throughout the story. The darkness can be interpreted in various ways, such as the darkness of the Congo wilderness, the darkness of the human heart, or the darkness of the imperialistic project. The darkness of the Congo wilderness is portrayed as a mysterious and ominous place, a symbol of the unknown and uncontrollable forces of nature that threaten to overwhelm the colonizers (1)(4). The darkness of the human heart is explored through the character of Kurtz, who is portrayed as having gone insane in the African jungle, and is a symbol of the moral decay and corruption that can result from the pursuit of power and wealth (2)(6). The darkness of imperialism is depicted as the hypocrisy of the European colonizers, who claim to be civilizing and enlightening the "primitive" Africans, while they themselves engage in brutal and dehumanizing acts (7)(10). Overall, the theme of darkness in "The Heart of Darkness" highlights the destructive power of human greed, corruption, and exploitation in the context of imperialistic expansion.

[1] "Heart of Darkness was published in 1902 as a novella in Youth: And Two Other Stories, a collection which included two other stories by Conrad. But the text first appeared in 1899 in Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, a literary monthly on its thousandth issue, to which its editor invited Conrad to contribute."

URL: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Heart-of-Darkness

[2] "First published in 1899, Heart of Darkness - which formed the basis of the 1979 Vietnam war film Apocalypse Now - is one of the first recognisably modernist works of literature in English fiction. Its author was the Polish-born Joseph Conrad, and English wasnt his first language (or even, for that matter, his second)."

URL: https://interestingliterature.com/2021/08/joseph-conrad-heart-of-darkness-summary-analysis/

[3] "When Joseph Conrad published Heart of Darkness from 1898 to 1899, the literary world let it slip by. Contemporary critics complained that the text mystified everything needlessly. However, within ..."

URL: https://study.com/learn/lesson/heart-of-darkness-by-joseph-conrad-themes-analysis.html

[4] "The linguistic style of Heart of Darkness is gloomy and foreboding. As Conrad announces with his title, the novella is dominated both by a sense of darkness and by the anticipation involved in going into darknesss heart.. This sense of an ominous journey is also suggested when Marlow begins to speak to the passengers onboard the ..."

URL: https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/heart-of-darkness/style/

[5] "Heart of Darkness Summary Next Part 1 Literary devices: Genre Mood Setting Style Tone View all The Narrator describes a night spent on a ship in the mouth of the Thames River in England. Marlow, one of the men on board, tells of his time spent as a riverboat pilot in the Belgian Congo."

URL: https://www.litcharts.com/lit/heart-of-darkness/summary

[6] "While Heart of Darkness offers a powerful condemnation of the hypocritical operations of imperialism, it also presents a set of issues surrounding race that is ultimately troubling. Read about the related theme of the negligence of the British colonial government in E. M. Forsters A Passage to India. Madness as a Result of Imperialism"

URL: https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/heart-of-darkness/themes/

[7] "The Heart Of Darkness themes centers around the hypocrisy of imperialism and the resulting madness, darkness of the soul, lack of restraint, human folly, the absurdity of evil, futility, contradiction and ambivalence, racism, and hollowness. In his book, Conrad compares London, the greatest town on earth, to Africa, as places of darkness."

URL: https://myhomeworkdone.com/blog/heart-of-darkness-summary/

[8] "Tarik ORegans Heart of Darkness, an opera in one act, opened in 2011. Premiering at Londons Royal Opera House, it was reportedly the first operatic adaptation of Conrads story and heavily..."

URL: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/530711/facts-about-joseph-conrads-heart-darkness

[9] "For Marlow, the sense of savagery, real or imagined, was suffocating: In some inland post feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round him... When one has got to make correct entries, one comes to hate those savages—hate them to the death. But Marlow and, by derivation, Conrad, could see what their fear of the savages said ..."

URL: https://www.thoughtco.com/heart-of-darkness-quotes-740037

[10] "Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Study Guide of Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality study guides that feature detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, quotes, and essay topics."

URL: https://www.supersummary.com/heart-of-darkness/summary/