Heart of Darkness

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The Heart of Darkness
Conrad focuses on Marlow who ventures into Africa searching for ivory and then starts to find out more details about Mr. Kurtz; an intriguing white man leading a station deep in the Congo. The novel explores European and African culture, with this becoming a major talking point in the narrative as source of conflict. Darkness symbolizes evil and backwardness in the story where Africans are seen as ‘Barbarians’ and less civilized than the Europeans who seek to trade in ivory, unlike Africans who have no commercial interest in ivory. This paper highlights on two instances in which the novel focuses on darkness being synonymous with negativity.
“Everything belonged to him - but that was a trifle. The thing was to know what he belonged to, how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own (Conrad 24)” in this passage in the second chapter Kurtz, appears to have been engulfed by a dark spirit in the African wilderness. The narrator alludes to the notion that Mr. Kurtz has become so much attached to the Africans that he is no longer separate from their ‘devilish acts’. Darkness is synonymous with evil and the African way of life. “Oh, yes -- he did it. Did it very well, too, no doubt, and without thinking much about it either, except afterwards to brag of what he had gone through in his time, perhaps. They were men enough to face the darkness,” (Conrad 4). In the passage, the characters allude to Africa being a God forsaken place and only the strongest of men had the ability and resolve to fight for the fleet’s top position.
Both passages show that the cultural difference of the Europeans and the Africans shaped Europeans’ perception about Africa. The Congo was depicted as a dark place that was full of evil and nothing was positive about the native African people. The Eurocentric view seems to suggest that, interacting and staying in Africa would also lead to manifes...