Heart of Darkness
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“Heart of Darkness”
The novel, Heart of Darkness is written by Joseph Conrad. This novel is about a voyage of a man named Marlow, who is the narrator of the story, up the Congo River into the Congo Free State in Africa. This book was written in 1899, but the scene of the story is in 1902.
The setting of this novel is in the latter part of the nineteenth century, sometime between 1876 and 1892. First part is on the Thames River outside London, where Marlow is telling the story of Heart of Darkness. The story takes place in Brussels, at the Company’s offices, and in the Congo, then a Belgian territory.
The theme of Heart of Darkness explores the issues surrounding imperialism in many different ways. As Marlow travels from the Outer Station to the Central Station and up the river to the Inner Station, he comes cross scenes of torture, cruelty, and what looks to be slavery. The impetus behind Marlow’s adventures has to do with the hypocrisy inherent in the rhetoric used to justify imperialism. The men who work for the Company describe what they do as trade, and their treatment of native Africans is part of a benevolent project of civilization. Kurtz, on the other hand, is open about the fact that he does not trade but rather takes ivory by force, and he describes his own treatment of the natives with the words suppression. His perverse honesty leads to his downfall, as his success threatens to expose the evil practices behind European activity in Africa.