Overall, I enjoyed Heart of Darkness; Joseph Conrad is a fantastic writer. The plot was fairly engaging and I definitely got a feel of the location.
Plot overview:
Heart of Darkness centres around Marlow, an introspective sailor, and his journey up the Congo River to meet Kurtz, reputed to be an idealistic man of great abilities. Marlow takes a job as a riverboat captain with the Company, a Belgian concern organized to trade in the Congo. As he travels to Africa and then up the Congo, Marlow encounters widespread inefficiency and brutality in the Company’s stations. The native inhabitants of the region have been forced into the Company’s service, and they suffer terribly from overwork and ill treatment at the hands of the Company’s agents.
The pessimism was interesting when compared to other modernists such as Evelyn Waugh. We see the true, dark motives of a barbaric civilisation. It plays upon the idea of 'darkness' as a symbol for evil or immorality.
The direct criticism is the hypocrisy of imperialism, but there is a larger criticism of mankind as a whole.
The most interesting thing about Heart of Darkness is the narrative style - a story within a story. This is exactly the type of thing a modernist would do, as it added a layer of complexity and messes with the style and structure. I love these sorts of experiments, where something is unconventional. We even get something of an unreliable narrator, which has always been one of my favourite ideas in literature.
"We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness."
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