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Title: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad ISBN: 0-486-26464-5 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 01 July, 1990 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $1.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (314 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A Book That Forces Man to Question his Values
Comment: Through his gloomy tone and extensive use of imagery, Joseph Conrad reveals the darkness that lie within men's souls in less than a hundred pages. As Marlow--a sea captain disgusted with the copious ignorance around him--recalls his experience of finding Kurtz--a brilliant prodigy turned mad by the wilderness--deep in the heart of Africa, Conrad presents dual plots in his story. The first plot, Marlow's search for Kurtz, wonderfully illustrates the surrender to madness in those around Marlow as they both travel further into the "Heart of Darkness." Likewise, the second plot--Kurtz's life--delves the reader into the ingenious and penetrating mind of a man changed forever by the wild. As a result, the life of Marlow, Kurtz, and every other character changes greatly. After reading this book, one might question the civility of both man and his maker...
Rating: 5
Summary: Great Book
Comment: Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is quite possibly the best book that I have ever read. I have read many books based on cultural differences and the effects on the people involved. Heart of Darkness explores the mind of an educated European as he travels to Africa. It is the story of a man named Marlow. Conrad has created a complex narrator in Marlow, a man who is not all good or all bad. He travels to Africa with a vague belief of the goodness behind the imperialist venture, but what he finds is totally opposite. He despises the destruction, greed, chaos, and inhumanity that he sees in Africa and begins to identify, through sympathy, with the "savage" natives, but he refuses to do anything to help them. He cannot rise above his European thinking that somehow the white man is superior. He returns from the Congo to Belgium and does nothing except to perpetrate the myth of the goodness behind European imperialism when he lies to Kurtz's Intended. At least the lies have a pure motive, in that, save the distraught fiancé.
The novel has two separate settings. One, the frame narrative, is the setting for the telling of the tale on a cruising yawl (sailing vessel) or yacht on the Thames River near London, England. The second setting is that of the actual tale. In it, the protagonist travels to Brussels, the capital city of Belgium and home to the ivory company. Then to the Belgium Congo in Africa, with its dark, snaking, and mysterious river (in contrast to the tranquil Thames), and then back to Brussels.
As a person, Marlow is a thirty-two year old seaman who has traveled extensively. His experience on the Congo River is a departure for him, for his travels are usually in salt waters. As a narrator, Marlow is unreliable in the sense that he is not an objective teller of the story, but is instead emotionally conflicted about the events and people within his tale. He is also a figure who is alienated from the mainstream. Unlike most Europeans who bought into the justifications for imperialism and saw it as a righteous cause, Marlow saw that it was nothing but greed. However, Marlow's ability to distance himself from the dominant thinking of the time does not fully free him from that kind of thinking. In the end, he accepts the injustice of imperialism by supporting the lies, which justify it.
Heart of Darkness is structured as a journey of discovery, both externally in the jungle, and internally in Marlow's own mind. The deeper he penetrates into the heart of the jungle, the deeper he delves within himself; by the climax, when Kurtz has been revealed for the disgrace he is, Marlow has also learned something about himself. And he returns to civilization with this new knowledge.
Marlow doesn't tell his tale straight through from beginning to end; he'll skip from an early event to a late event and back again. Thus, we get several pages about Kurtz- Marlow's impressions and evaluation of his behavior- close to the end of Chapter II, but Kurtz himself doesn't appear on the scene until some way into Chapter III.
Conrad has created the character of Kurtz out of all the contradictions and madness of imperialism. Like Marlow, he is of European descent and is described as half-French and half- English. He is also described as a universal genius that is a great writer, painter, poet, orator, musician, and politician. Also like Marlow, Kurtz comes to Africa with noble intentions of doing good things for the Dark Continent. He believes that each station of the ivory company, for which he is an agent, should help the natives to a better way of life, but good (the light truth) and evil (the dark truth) split Kurtz's soul. Unfortunately, in the end he crosses over to live totally by the dark truth.
On the level of words, Kurtz expounds on the ideals of altruism, progress, enlightenment, and kindliness in the European presence in Africa. On the level of actions, he ruthlessly kills Africans, steals their natural resources in order to forward his own goals for rising in the company and in the world, and presents himself as a deity to be worshipped by the natives. Marlow says Kurtz is insane mainly for the reason that he embodies this contradiction, but Kurtz has also been horribly neglected by the Manager and deprived of food and supplies for months, a situation that would drive any normal man to insanity. Whether Kurtz is actually insane at the time of his death is left open to speculation. Perhaps Marlow names him as insane simply because he has great difficulty dealing with the reality of the man.
Some of the other minor, but important characters are: the Russian fool, the Intended, Director of Companies, Lawyer, Accountant, and the unnamed narrator. The Russian fool is a man known by his clothes with many colorful patches making him look much like a harlequin. He works with Kurtz who proves to be poor company for him. The Russian fool is an important foil to Kurtz, to help us understand his standards and goals. This in turn helps us understand Marlow more fully. The Intended is Kurtz's bride to be who at the end of the book still thinks that Kurtz was the great man that she remembered him to be and Marlow doesn't have the heart to tell her otherwise. The Director of Companies is a nameless captain on board the Nellie, one of Marlow's listeners. The Lawyer, Accountant, and unnamed narrator are nameless men on board Nellie. They are the listeners of Marlow's story. These men merely help to make the story possible and create dialogue outside of the story.
Rating: 4
Summary: Conrad in exquisite agony
Comment: Back in the day, "Heart" used to get paired with The Secret Sharer, which is a far more suspenseful tale (questionable ship's captain almost runs his craft aground to dump the sharer dude), but "Heart" is Conrad @his agonizing best, almost defying the reader to comprehend that which the narrator never does.
Although the main tale is Marlowe's, reader may recall that tale begins in third-person omniscient, as crew anticipates another Marlovian intrusion while waiting for the tide to rise on the Thames. Conrad's obsession with detail: Marlowe's physical by company doctor includes having his 19th-century head measured with calipers & doctor extracting promise from Marlowe to have head measured on return, since doc's convinced heads shrink in Africa. He should be so lucky.
Of course, Marlowe's hypermorality (according to him, everyone's an opportunist or slackard) deserts him when he's confronted with Kurtz's intended's insistence on hearing the last words (& we ALL know what they are), & we know then that Marlowe is mortal & sullied by the heart of darkness. Conrad was a miserable guy, full of debts & doubt, but if he weren't, there'd be no Heart of Darkness, maybe the premier allegory in modern lit.
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Title: CliffsNotes on Conrad's Heart of Darkness & The Secret Sharer by Daniel Moran ISBN: 0764585843 Publisher: Cliffs Notes Pub. Date: 05 June, 2000 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: Things Fall Apart : A Novel by CHINUA ACHEBE ISBN: 0385474547 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 01 September, 1994 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Constance Garnett ISBN: 0553211757 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 June, 1984 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man by James Joyce, Seamus Deane ISBN: 0142437344 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 25 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $9.00 |
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Title: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley ISBN: 0553212478 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 May, 1984 List Price(USD): $4.95 |
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