Heart of Darkness Introduction
Just got the book.
Here is what the inside cover of the Everyman's Library edition says: "Apparently a sailors yarn, it is in fact a grim parody of the adventure story, in which the narrator, Marlow, travels deep into the heart of the Congo where he encounters the crazed idealist Kurtz and discovers that the relative values of the civilized and the primitive are not what they seem. Heart of darkness is a model of economic storytelling, an indictment of the inner and outer turmoil caused by the European imperial misadventure, and a piercing account of the fragility of the human soul."
I will also be looking for some of these themes that I found presented in the books introduction written by Verlyn Klinkenborg:
Heart of Darkness is not a parable about the loss of one man's soul to a wilderness of evil. It is a story about what it means to share implicitly the penalty of that loss, a story about the impossibility of innocence.
Also... Torturous irresolution is apparently an abundant theme. Moral conundrums and dilemmas are raised one after another.
As well as... Kurtz being free of hypocrisy. Kurtz's demoralization is at least carried out in earnest unlike the pilgrims or other members of the expedition. Marlow admires him for this.
That is all so far. Please add the themes that you have found, preferably with no spoilers...
posted by Matthew at
1:13 PM
3 Comments:
So, not to sound overly simplistic, but just in reading the intoduction I feel I can forshadow Conrad's attitude towards conquest/imperialism. He grew up in Russian-occupied Poland for crying out loud, and his father publically protested the occupation--he was even imprisonsed for such actions. The family was then exhiled by Russian authorities, and their new circumstances contributed to the health decline, and eventual death of Conrad's mother and father. So yeah, don't think he's going to be a huge fan of invasion/occupation/conquest/imperialism/all that jazz.
I'm also going to keep my eyes open for, "The novella's diverse attributes--its rich symbolism, intricate plotting, evocative prose, penetrating psychological insights, broad allusiveness, moral significance, metaphysical suggestiveness..." I'm also going to keep in mind the "duh" fact that the novella, "...is widely recognized as an indictment of the greed and ruthlessness that generally drove European imperialism in Africa." I'm kind of scared about what is to come in my reading since the events on which the story focuses have been referred to as the "African Holocaust," and as, "the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience." But then again, I've read HOD before so I'm not that scared in real life.
A theme mentioned in the introduction is "the collapse of the distinction between civilization and barbarism." Okay, that's cool, but for some reason I am more interested in the novellas "...dismantling those binary oppositions (civilization/barbarism, Europe/Africa, Christianity/heathenism, white men/black men)that provided the ideological foundation of Anglo-European society of the era."
Morgan's computer is freaking out, so I'm going to go ahead and post this now, but will continue to add on.
There's also a mention of the difference between men and women, when discussing Marlow and his aunt? Okay.
Wow, this introduction gives away WAY too much information! Thanks a lot Michael Matin. I'm just going to forget the rest and start reading. Here it goes!
Conrad is a crazy man. Crazy!
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