English: Book Report:
                     Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness
                                                                                             July 03, 1998

                     Click Here For Research Papers Online! Interpretations of Heart of Darkness
                     In Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, there is a great interpretation of the
                     feelings of the characters and uncertainties of the Congo. Although Africa, nor
                     the Congo are ever really referred to, the Thames river is mentioned as
                     support. This intricate story reveals much symbolism due to Conrad's theme
                     based on the lies and good and evil, which interact together in every man.
                     Today, of course, the situation has changed. Most literate people know that by
                     probing into the heart of the jungle Conrad was trying to convey an impression
                     about the heart of man, and his tale is universally read as one of the first
                     symbolic masterpieces of English prose (Graver,28). In any event, this story
                     recognizes primarily on Marlow, its narrator, not about Kurtz or the brutality of
                     Belgian officials. Conrad wrote a brief statement of how he felt the reader
                     should interpret this work: "My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the
                     power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel-it is above all,
                     to make you see.(Conrad 1897) Knowing that Conrad was a novelist who lived
                     in his work, writing about the experiences were as if he were writing about
                     himself. "Every novel contains an element of autobiography-and this can
                     hardly be denied, since the creator can only explain himself in his
                     creations."(Kimbrough,158) The story is written as seen through Marlow's
                     eyes. Marlow is a follower of the sea. His voyage up the Congo is his first
                     experience in freshwater navigation. He is used as a tool, so to speak, in order
                     for Conrad to enter the story and tell it out of his own philosophical mind. He
                     longs to see Kurtz, in the hope's of appreciating all that Kurtz finds endearing
                     in the African jungle. Marlow does not get the opportunity to see Kurtz until he
                     is so disease-stricken he looks more like death than a person. There are no
                     good looks or health. In the story Marlow remarks that Kurtz resembles "an
                     animated image of death carved out of old ivory." Like Marlow, Kurtz is seen
                     as an honorable man to many admirers; but he is also a thief, murderer,
                     raider, persecutor, and above all he allows himself to be worshipped as a god.
                     Both men had good intentions to seek, yet Kurtz seemed a "universally
                     genius" lacking basic integrity or a sense of responsibility (Roberts,43). In the
                     end they form one symbolic unity. Marlow and Kurtz are the light and dark
                     selves of a single person. Meaning each one is what the other might have
                     been. Every person Marlow meets on his venture contributes something to the
                     plot as well as the overall symbolism of the story. Kurtz is the violent devil
                     Marlow describes at the story's beginning. It was his ability to control men
                     through fear and adoration that led Marlow to signify this. Throughout the
                     story Conrad builds an unhealthy darkness that never allows the reader to
                     forget the focus of the story. At every turn he sees evil lurking within the land.
                     Every image reflects a dreary, blank one. The deadly Congo snakes to link
                     itself with the sea and all other rivers of darkness and light, with the tributaries
                     and source of man's being on earth (Dean,189). The setting of these
                     adventurous and moral quests is the great jungle, in which most of the story
                     takes place. As a symbol the forest encloses all, and in the heart of the
                     African journey Marlow enters the dark cavern of his won heart. It even
                     becomes an image of a vast catacomb of evil, in which Kurtz dies, but from
                     which Marlow emerges spiritually reborn. The manager, in charge of three
                     stations in the jungle, feels Kurtz poses a threat to his own position. Marlow
                     sees how the manager is deliberately trying to delay any help or supplies to
                     Kurtz. He hopes he will die of neglect. This is where the inciting moment of the
                     story lies. Should the company in Belgium find out the truth a bout Kurtz's
                     success in an ivory procurer, they would undoubtedly elevate him to the
                     position of manager. The manager's insidious and pretending nature opposes
                     all truth (Roberts,42). This story can be the result of two completely different
                     aspects in Conrad's life. One being his journey in the Congo. Conrad had a
                     childhood wish associated with a disapproved childhood ambition to go to sea.
                     Another would be an act of man to throw his life away. Thus, the adventurous
                     Conrad and Conrad the moralist may have experienced collision. But the
                     collision, again as with many novelists of the second war, could well have been
                     deferred and retrospective, not felt intensely at the time (Kimbrough,124).
                     Heart of Darkness is a record of things seen and done, Then it was ivory that
                     poured from the heart of darkness; now it is uranium. There were so many
                     actual events and facts in the story it made it more an enormity than
                     entertaining. His confrontations as a man are both dangerous and
                     enlightening. Perhaps man's inhumanity to man is his greatest sin. And since
                     the story closes with a lie, maybe Conrad was discovering and analyzing the
                     two aspects of truth-black truth and white truth. Both, of which, are inherent in
                     every human soul. 4 Back to School Sucks