Heart_Of_Darkness

Heart Of Darkness Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness does not explicitly deal with a struggle between war and peace: the conflict is a psychological, moral one; however, the text’s implications that society is a thin veil over our innate savagery, the darkness at the roots of Western civilization, reveals disturbing truths about the peaceful, orderly lives we take for granted. The key to understanding Conrad’s novella lies in ascertaining the metaphorical significance of the “heart of darkness,” a search which may yield an answer as complex and obscure than any geographical, sociological or psychological solution. Since its publication, several critics have categorized Heart of Darkness as a travelogue, or, at the least, a seaman’s tale mixed with autobiographical elements from Conrad’s life, yet the story itself refutes such interpretations: The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut. But Marlow was not typical (if his propensity to spin yarns be expected), and to him the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze…. (Miller 68) Conrad’s story is obviously about more than a bad heart, darkness, marlow, kurtz, light, dark, civilization, out, imperialism, society, one, kurtz’s, over, lackey, europeans, european, been, about, world, within, true, setting, places, miller, conrad’s, civilized, black, western, way, savagery, report, people, own, natives, manager