Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
The backcountry Marlow travels through is sinister, and the natives become more sinister as well. These natives represent the evil they are fighting against and graphically illustrate what it has done to their culture. They have become violent and frightening because of the violence and fear tactics that have been used against them.
In addition, Kurtz goes mad at his outpost in the jungle, and his madness is a result of the imperialistic attitudes of the Europeans. A companion of Kurtz says of him, "You don't know how such a life tries a man like Kurtz'" (Conrad 54). He spends years wandering in the jungle, trading for ivory, and learning about the natives and their customs, and he comes to be worshipped by them, who seem to look at him like a white God. Marlow says of him, "But his soul was mad. Being alone in the wilderness, it had looked within itself, and, by heavens! I tell you, it had gone mad" (Conrad 61). Kurtz has fallen in love with the wilderness and the natives, but he cannot admit that. He continues to take advantage of them by taking their ivory, and he continues to bask in their worship, even while he pillages their villages for ivory and other treasures. He represents imperialism at its worst, and yet the natives defend him. They do not understand how he is harming them, and that is truly the "horror" of this novel. Kurtz knows the natives are innocent and will never survive,...
He seems sympathetic to the natives, yet early in his stay in Belgium, he advocated "exterminating" them all. It is this twist of position that helps drive him mad, as well.
Conrad infuses the novel with this theme of evil, and just about every chapter references the Belgians, the natives, and their struggles with each other. Critic Bloom continues, "Imperialist corruption is anatomized in sharp, visual images, and a clear moral viewpoint is presented, a scheme of values preserved by Marlow in his devotion to the work ethic" (Bloom 35). By writing about imperialism the way he does, Conrad shows his own feelings about it, and shows its evils simply by describing it, and the people who are carrying it out. They are victims, using any means they can to fight back and save their way of life. The way that most of the European characters view them is ignorant and uncalled for, but again, Conrad uses this to indicate just how evil imperialism was. The Europeans simply took whatever they wanted - land and people, without any thought to the people themselves. Imperialism was an evil practice, and Conrad makes that very clear in this novel.
References
Bloom, Harold, ed. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. New York: Chelsea House, 1987.
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. New York: Dover Publications, 1990.
It would come slowly to one. They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity -- like yours -- the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar." (Conrad 105). This indicates a gradual shift of viewpoint from the Western, or civilized, to the uncivilized. In this, Marlow's viewpoint shift foreshadows his meeting with Kurtz.
Anticolonialism in Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness offers a complex look at the effects of colonialism and imperialism in the nineteenth century, such that different scholars have alternately interpreted its message to be one of either pro- or anti- colonialism and imperialism, with either side of the debate finding ample evidence within the text to supports its conclusions. However, by examining critical work surrounding the text, as
[toc] Joseph Conrad�s novella Heart of Darkness is a fictionalized account of real-life historical events that took place during the colonial era in Africa. The novel centers on the protagonist Charles Marlow, known throughout the book as Marlow. As Marlow travels deeper and deeper down the river on a mission for the Company, he becomes increasingly horrified and shocked by what he sees. Having witnessed first hand the insane cruelty of
Heart Darkness The Postcolonial Landscape in Heart of Darkness Published in 1899, the novella Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is to this date described as an absolutely critical text in expanding the scholarly discourse on colonialism and its inherently related forces of racism, exploitation and ethnocentrism. By its intent, one finds a text that delivers an unflinching portrayal of the clearly abusive, unethical and racially-justified atrocities fueled by both the greed
It reveals the truth about mankind and while this may be an ugly truth, it is one of which we need to be reminded. My research in Joseph Conrad has allowed me to appreciate him more as an author. I have always been interested in this period of history. I can appreciate Conrad for more than simply someone who wrote books. Before reading the articles, I knew I liked the
Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now Comparing and Contrasting Coppola's Apocalypse with Conrad's Darkness While Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now is framed by the music of The Doors, Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness, upon which the film is based, uses the narration of Marlow as a framing device for the murky tale of the "horror" that hides in the human heart. The difference in framing devices has more to do with