The Heart of Darkness

This book, as I am sure most people would agree to, was definitely a little out of the norm of my reading experiences. I am always open to new things, but I can definitely say that I was not really a fan of Heart of Darkness. The style it was written in, including dialect, syntax, and tone made the novel very difficult to understand and really get into. I find it difficult to really grasp the point of a novel when I cannot get interested in reading it. At times it appeared to be very dense like novels of Scarlet Letter proportion. Despite these superficial difficulties, Conrad creates extremely complex, interesting characters. Kurtz and Marlow are far from simple. Kurtz portrays the consumption of a man by evil. I could not wrap my mind around Kurtz because I cannot fathom the evil that overtook him. The darkness that surrounded the novel as a whole, surrounded him as an individual specifically. What horror he must really have dealt with. Marlow on the other hand, I really liked as a character. He struggled against his inner evil, but came out for the most part on top. He did not succumb to the evil like Kurtz. He felt it; he experienced it, but he did not let go of the wheel and lose control. While Conrad's created extremely appealing characters, he put them in a context that made it difficult to enjoy them to the full extent.

"She had [...] bizarre things, charms, gifts of witch-men, that hung about her, glittered and trembled at every step. She must have had the value of several elephant tusks upon her. She was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent; there was something ominous and stately in her deliberate progress." (Conrad 142)

This quote is full of contradictions; much like the entire story. The quote describes the woman as "savage and superb" and "ominous and stately", which are odd sets of words to use to describe the same individual. The ideas the words represent just do not go together. This is just like Kurtz and the colonies. So many people rant of Kurtz's intelligence and skill, yet spears with heads on top line the outside of his hut. What kind of brilliant man can represent such savagery at the same time? It is the same with the colonies. The settlements on the coast misrepresent the whole picture to the mother countries in Europe. They see their colonies as only being like the coast settlements, not the interior where the heart of darkness lies. The primitive ruthlessness of the interior of the colony contradicts the pretty picture in the minds of the imperialistic countries in Europe. The quote shows that many things can have two very different sides to them. This woman may be intriguing, but walks with an aire of danger about her. Kurtz may be one of the greatest assets to the company's ivory collection, but he is also a savage murderer. The colonies may be a great economic asset for the European countries, but they are also the sites of unmentionable horrors. Conrad uses contradiction throughout the novel to contrast superficiality with reality.

One of the themes I found interesting in the novel was the contradiction of the interior vs. the exterior. The interior was referred to as the inner jungle where the heart of darkness lies that Marlow must travel into, while the coast is viewed in a much more favorable light. The joy of the exterior and the horror of the interior are supposed to be symbolic of human nature. The novel delves into the question of whether or not evil lies within everyone. All signs from the novel seem to point to yes it does. To use Kurtz as an example, he appeared successful and intelligent on the outside. The leaders of the company saw him as a man of great talent in acquiring great amounts of ivory. However, as Marlow tragically witnesses, Kurtz was far from this fine man other saw him as. Marlow saw what lay in the interior of Kurtz-pure evil. Even calling the interior the heart of darkness is symbolic of the interior of everyone of us. Your heart is in the interior, and with that is also darkness. Many people have such thick, bright exteriors that it is sometimes difficult for the evil interior to pierce through the light. A lot of times the interior will attempt to cover up for what is on the inside. Throughout the novel interiors and exteriors are tied together by contradiction. At first sight things appear one way to Marlow, but upon further examination, end up being quite the opposite of his original thoughts.