Heart of Darkness by Joseph

¶ … Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad [...] my understanding of the "heart of darkness. The "Heart of Darkness" is a classic novel that has been studied for decades. Conrad's main theme of the novel was the Belgian takeover of the Congo area of Africa, and how it resulted in violence, hatred, prejudice and the loss of the people's culture and lifestyle. This imperialism was common at the time, and it showed the cruelty of humankind over one another. Conrad's novel was a dark look at imperialism and the cruelties of the Belgian people who came to the Congo to make money, and treated the natives like dirt. It was a sad time, and this is why Conrad makes his novel so dark and sad, too.

There are many places in the novel that back up this understanding of what Conrad meant by his title. For example, early in the book another character says of Kurtz and his purpose, "for the guidance of the cause intrusted [sic] to us by Europe, so to speak, higher intelligence, wide sympathies, a singleness of purpose" (Conrad). This shows that the European imperialists were not concerned with the natives and how they treated them, or how they treated their land. The Europeans were only concerned with making money. They took over the Congo because of its rich natural resources, and they really did not care what happened to the natives.

Later in the book, Marlow hears "A cry, a very loud cry, as of infinite desolation" (Conrad) that rises out of the darkness and it leaves Marlow feeling it is "an irresistible impression of sorrow" and "unrestrained grief" (Conrad). This is also a direct reference to the heart of darkness in the Congo. The heart is the darkness of the human soul that can allow one man to treat another like an animal, and that is what the Europeans were doing to the natives. That is why the natives were so unhappy and so violent. They were fighting for the only life they knew, and they only life they wanted.

Earlier in the book Conrad also writes of the natives working on the railroad, "They were dying slowly -- it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now -- nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom" (Conrad). These men were literally being worked to death to create a railroad that would only benefit the Europeans trying to bring goods to the coast to ship back to Europe. The Europeans did not care about the blacks and their culture, their families, and their way of life. They just saw them as something in the way of progress, like the jungle. Again, this shows the theme of the heart of darkness, and that heart is the evil and greed in the hearts of men who will treat people that way.