Conrad drew attention to the last pages of ”Heart of Darkness” in his letter of 31 May 1902 to William Blackwood, in which he says that ”the interview of the man and the girl locks in—as it were—the whole 30000 words of narrative description into one suggestive view of a whole phase of life, and…
Tag: Congo
Heart of Darkness – Analysis
Many of Conrad’s stories take place primarily in the all-male environment of the sailing ship, or other all-male social or work settings. Yet, the female characters in “Heart of Darkness” play an important role in the central themes and symbolism of the story. Female characters here include: Marlow’s aunt, who helps him to get the…
Heart of Darkness – Setting
Apocalypse Now The 1978 film Apocalypse Now, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, is based on Conrad’s story ”Heart of Darkness.” While Conrad’s story is set in the Congo in the 1890s, and is a commentary on imperialism in the form of Belgian colonization, Coppola’s film is set during the Vietnam War in the 1960s, and…
Heart of Darkness – Narrator – Imagery
Narrator Narrative technique is an important element of Conrad’s literary style. This story is structured as an “embedded narrative.” This means that the central story, narrated by the fictional character Charlie Marlow, is “embedded” in a “frame” narrative, whereby the ”frame” narrator introduces Marlow’s character, and presents the central story as a direct quotation from…
Heart of Darkness – Themes
Civilization and the Primitive The central theme around which this story revolves is civilization versus wilderness. The symbolism that represents this theme is the opposition of light versus darkness. As in much of European art and literature, the imagery of ‘ ‘light” is associated with Western culture, civilization, knowledge, and the conscious mind. The imagery…
Heart of Darkness – Characters
The Harlequin Russian Soldier The Harlequin Russian soldier greets Marlow upon his arrival at Kurtz’s compound. A Westerner, he seems half-crazed and maniacally obsessed with the worship of Kurtz as an exceptional being. Kurtz Kurtz is a Company employee of “unsound methods,” whom Marlow has been charged with retrieving from the depths of the Congo….
Heart of Darkness – Summary
“Heart of Darkness” begins with the “frame” narrator’s description of a group of men relaxing on a private yacht one evening. One of the men, Charlie Marlow, a sailor, commences to tell his friends a tale of one of his adventures as the captain of a steamboat going down the Congo River. The rest of…
Heart of Darkness: Two Different Interpretations
Joseph Conrad’s novella is an encapsulation of the experience of colonialism from the point of view of Europeans. Based on his own seafaring voyages across the colonies, Conrad attempts to picture the dichotomy of civility and barbarity. Through the characters of Kurtz, Marlow, the Russian and the natives, a composite picture of colonial Africa is…
Nation and the Politics of Congo
While today Congo operates within a Democratic Republic framework, till as recently as 2005 the concept of nationhood is not familiar to the population. The region of Congo had for most part of the twentieth century been ruled by Belgium. And after the withdrawal of Belgian imperial rule in 1960, the region was torn apart…
Problems with traditional ethnographic film-making as exemplified by Nanook of the North
The film Nanook of the North is a pioneering effort by film-maker Robert Flaherty. Released in 1922 and filmed in the immediately preceding years, the film was a tentative experimentation in two genres – ethnography and documentary. At a time when the written word was the primary mode of information dissemination, Nanook of the North…