The Task Was About The Novel "Heart Of Darkness" (Book Review Sample)

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Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad's, is primarily narrated by Charlie Marlow. Marlow is depicted as a talkative and wise seaman as he describes his personal experiences as steamship captain on the expanses of Congo River Basin. Charlie Marlow signs up with a French trading company as he was thrilled by the opportunity to explore the wilds of Congo River Basins. Marlow was enthralled by the trading company as it claims to export ivory from various stations along the Congo. The novel presents the whole journey of Maslow as he meets number of people which may serve as the reminder of various consequences of human suffering and greed. The human sufferings are also linked with the opportunity of wealth even when it is at the expense of other or themselves. This work analyzes the work of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness by first providing the main events in the work. Furthermore, this analysis also examines the themes, symbols and motifs in the novel.
The most gifted and driven among the people mentioned in the novel is the mysterious Mr. Kurtz. Kurtz was a trade agent in a company penetrated farther into the wilderness of Africa before any other company. Marlow finds out that his main assignments is to take Steamship River and retrieve the assets of this company. Along the journey, Marlow is stunned to find out the rules of civilization i.e. the Europeans who would ultimately attest the highest levels of social awareness mostly behave more violently as compared to the natives. After long journey, Marlow at last finds Mr. Kurtz but was surprised to find him in poor mental and physical condition. The most damaging aspect of Kurtz’s illness is his own desire for notoriety and power. Mr. Kurtz dies in the downriver but not before Charlie Marlow realizes that even the remarkable agent still has chance of being lost to heart of darkness.
The novel Heart of Darkness explains the issues relating to imperialism in complex ways. As Marlow travels up the river, he encounters number of scenes of cruelty, torture and near slavery. The incidental scenes presented in the book depict the harsh picture of colonial enterprise. The men working for the company also describe the so called ‘trade’ and the treatment of native Africans as part of benevolent project termed as “civilization”. On other hand, Kurtz is very much open to the fact that he doesn’t trade. Instead, he takes the ivory through force and tells his own type of treatment by words “extermination” and “suppression”. He openly admits to rule Africans through intimidation and violence. This admission leads to downfall as his honesty threatens to expose the hidden evil practices behind European activities in Africa. On one hand Heart of Darkness shows powerful condemnation of European hypocritical operations of imperialism, the novel also presents a number of issues relating to the race. The book also closely links madness to imperialism. Madness acts as an ironic device to occupy the sympathies of reader. Marlow at first considers Kurtz as mad. However, as the reader gets more involves it becomes apparent that Kurtz’s madness is only relative. Thus, madness in the book is linked not only to the moral genius or absolute power but to the fundamental fallibility of man.
Another theme included in the novel is human folly. The novel explains the misplaced faith of humans in various notions. As Marlow interacts with many people, he realizes that they have been misled by the faith people placed in faulty notions. In particular, the case of trust placed in Mr. Kurtz. Futility is another theme noteworthy in the novel. Through all the trails, Marlow fully understands that is almost impossible for the humans to escape nature. Instead, the novel explains that humans must finds ways to overcome it.
Darkness is one of the most important concepts of the book as illustrated by the title. However, it is very difficult to distinguish darkness as everything described in the book is cloaked in darkness. England, Brussels and Africa are all depicted as gloomy and to some extend dark. Thus, darkness seems to be used metaphorically instead of specifically.
Comparison between exteriors and interiors pervade Heart of Darkness. At the beginning of the text, Marlow is mostly interested in surfaces in the aura instead of any hidden nuggets of deep meanings within the surroundings. This upsets the usual hierarchy of meaning as one normally seeks the hidden truth or message. Marlow is also confronted with number of surfaces and exteriors such as forest walls, river’s bank and Kurtz’s forehead.
The novel uses a number of symbols to explain the hidden truths for the reader. The symbols used in the novel include fog, women, river and Whited Sepulchre. Fog is one of the symbols which is a type...