Heart_of_Darkness

HEART OF DARKNESS. JOSEPH CONRAD – EXPOSICIÓN ANALÍTICA EXPOSICIÓN ANALÍTICA ROCÍO GARCÍA POVEDA LITERATURA INGLESA MODERNA Joseph Conrad (Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski 1857-1924), polish origin British novelist, he lived through the Victorian and Modernist period. He represented the intellectual crises. His parents fought for Poland’s independency, so Colonialism is in his own life. He leaves Poland in 1875 when he became a seaman and he travelled around the world. Conrad's experiences, especially in the Malay Archipelago and the Congo River in 1890, are reflected in their stories. He was considered a radical writer, the most radical writer during his period. Conrad wrote 13 novels, two memoirs and 28 short stories. One of the most popular novels of Conrad's Lord Jim (1900), which explores the concept of honor through the actions and feelings of a man who spends his life trying to atone for his cowardice during a shipwreck in his youth. Nostromo (1904), considered by many critics as his masterpiece. The Mirror of the Sea (1906) are works about his experiences in the sea. The Secret Agent (1907), reflects on the position of governments in the double politics. Terrorism. Double moral of states. In 1912 he starts working in an autobiographical work Almayer’s Foll. Life at sea and in foreign ports is the backdrop for most of his stories, but his obsession was the fundamental human condition and the individual's struggle between good and evil, which is reflected in his work Heart of Darkness, published in April 1899. The novel takes place in Africa divided by the Europeans, in the Belgian Congo along the river Congo which was important to transport things. This novella has a tripartite structure. Moreover, the structure of Heart of Darkness is a framing narrative, that is to say, a story inside other one. The main themes in the book are, the problems of politics (European countries ruling Africa) and psychology (Kurtz going mad). Morality and religion (when Marlow lies to Kurtz’s fiancée- What God can do but does not) , God/right and Evil/wrong. Other themes that are presented are the social order and evolution, racism, social Darwinism. Conrad uses the imperialism to explain what is right and what is wrong. Heart of Darkness has a modernist narrator: oblique narration, first person and a story within a story. Narrator with a limited knowledge of what is happening. Marlow tells the story a year later, so we can see more details and moral confusion of the character. Conrad uses Marlow in other novels (Lord Jim, Chance) but it is not a trilogy. He is a transtextual character; the character does not have relation with another. He is the representation of Conrad. In Heart of Darkness, Marlow should be the interpreter but he does not understand what is happening and at the same time he is taking the reader by the hand. The novel is loaded of symbolism, for instance, Light and darkness; symbolic dichotomy. Light sometimes is confusion. No possibility of redemption for anyone. The light starts to turn into darkness and a different light which is not a rational light. Kurtz was brave but could not stop but going mad because he did not know how to respond to the situation he was put. Another symbolism is the rive journey, it starts in daylight, which represents rationality of the centre of empire, to the heart of darkness. The Fog gives one just enough information to begin making decisions, but no way to judge the accuracy of that information, which often ends up being wrong. Marlow and Kurtz are the main characters of the novel; they can be interpreted like a symbol. Kurtz is not very long described in the text. He went to Africa for idealistic things, but he finds a situation he cannot control which brings him to madness. He was good but he could not understand the evil. Marlow is seen like a double but he is protected by the human side. He understands that he cannot understand, so he simply tries to survive. When he comes back, he is not the same person. The evil has no power in him. The process of going light to darkness is a reference to Dante and the people’s suffering. Finally, Heart of Darkness can be considered a work of interest and literary quality because of his cultural traditions; generic novel that shows the writer’s quest, traveler’s tales, psychological odyssey: travel within his own mind, symbolic novel: the journey the river, mediated autobiography: Conrad’s experiences through the character. Heart of Darkness provides a bridge between Victorian values and the ideals of modernism. Like other Victorian novels, this one relies on traditional ideas of heroism, which is nevertheless under constant attack in a changing world and in places far from England. Joseph Conrad like others writers, Charles dickens, George Orwell and John Steinbeck, curb the bad elements in the society through Art and Literature. They were making not only humanistic statements, but also political statements. The character of Kurtz is as openly a metaphorical figure. He represents a 'type' of personality: one that is intelligent, ambitious and capable. But at the sight of money, he turns into an evil genius. But all human beings also have a quality of 'empathy' as well, with all living things. So, after a while, he goes insane. Conrad, has the ability to reflect similar tragedies still keep repeating in our current world. He enriched English literature with many exceptional novels.