The Light and Dark Forces in Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness Essay

The Light and Dark Forces in Heart of shadow Heart of loathsomeness, by Joseph Conrad, explores something truer and more fundamental than a mere person-to-person narrative. It is a night journey into the unconscious and a confrontation inwardly the self. Certain circumstances of Marlows voyage, when looked at in these terms, have new importance. Marlow insists on the dreamlike quality of his narrative. It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream - making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream - sensation. Even before loss Brussels, Marlow felt as though he was about to set strike for center of the earth, not the center of a continent. The introspective voyager leaves his familiar intellectual world, is cut off from the comprehension of his surroundings, his steamer toils along slowly on the edge of a black and incomprehensible frenzy. As the crisis approaches, the dreamer and his channel moves through a silence that seemed unnatural, like a s tate of magical spell then enter a deep fog. In the end, there is a symbolic unity between the two men. Marlow and Kurtz are the light and dusky selves of a single person. Marlow is what Kurtz might have been, and Kurtz is what Marlow might have become. a lot of the meaning in Heart of Darkness is found not in the center of the book, the heart of Africa, but on the periphery of the book. The story that Marlow tells centers or so a man named Kurtz. However, most of what Marlow distinguishs about Kurtz he has learned from new(prenominal) people, many of whom have good reason for not being unbiased to Marlow. Therefore Marlow has to piece together much of Kurtzs story. We slowly get to know more and more about Kurtz. Part of the meaning of Heart of Darkness is ... ...e human condition. Kurtz represents what any man will become if left to his have got intrinsic desires without a protective, civilized environment. Marlow represents the civilized understanding that has not be en careworn back into savagery by a dark, alienated jungle. The book implies that every man has a heart of darkness that is usually drowned out by the light of civilization. However, when removed from civilized society, the raw evil within his soul will be released. Works Cited and Consulted Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. spick-and-span York Norton, 1971. Greene, Graham. The Heart of the Matter. New York Penguin, 1984. Hawthorn, Jeremy. Joseph Conrad Narrative Technique and Ideological Commitment. New York Arnold, 1990. Murfin, Ross C., ed. Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness A Case Study in Contemporary Criticism. New York Bedford-St. Martins, 1989.