Sparknotes heart of darkness symbols series#
Sparknotes heart of darkness symbols free#

Kurtz is physically quite a weak man, but he maintains enormous sway over the native population through his understanding of their language and his cultural and communication skills. There is a feeling of anything-goes vigilantism that shifts the balance of power from the stewards in a “civilized” state (police, doctors, bureaucrats) to whoever is most threatening. Whatever the conditions in Africa may be, all of the characters agree that they are different from those of Europe. The idea of 'darkness' expresses the theme of uncertainty in the novella. Marlow’s adherence to Kurtz until the end confuses the matter one could judge him one way or the other. But with vicious scrawlings on his manuscript and his ruthlessness in extracting ivory from the land, Kurtz proves himself the latter. At the beginning of the novella, the reader perceives that the former is his dominant (or only) characteristic. Kurtz himself is an uncertain figure, ruled as he is by two separate impulses, the noble and the destructive.

Sparknotes heart of darkness symbols free#

Similarly, Marlow has no clear idea of what the natives might do to him if Kurtz gave them free rein, and it is possible that this uncertainty increases his fear. They are threatening because they might be poisoned.

Sparknotes heart of darkness symbols series#

On one occasion, they let fly a series of arrows, but these even look ineffectual to Marlow. The natives do not seem inherently threatening. A sense of danger pervades the entire trip, and it is mostly dictated by uncertainty.

Marlow is obsessed with Kurtz before he even meets him, without a clear idea why. Land looks like a spine sticking out from a man’s back but is not described in topographical terms. Nothing in this novella is described in very concrete terms. Instead, there is “the horror.” In contrast, it seems, is the more advanced civilization of the colonizers and visitors. Conrad seems to claim that the Christian belief that prehistory was untouched by obscurity or evil is a fallacy. Words like “pestilent” and “sordid” are used again and again to describe the natives and their land. The paradox of the novel, however, is that by traveling backwards in time, the crew do not move closer to the innocence and purity of the 'noble savage' but farther away from it. When Conrad wrote this story, scientists were learning that Africa is the seat of human civilization, and this knowledge is reflected in the fact that the trees are (almost prehistorically) enormous on the route down the river. PrimitivismĪs the crew make their way up the river, they are traveling into the “heart of darkness.” The contradiction, however, is that Marlow also feels as if he were traveling back in time.

Although Marlow is by no means a heroic character, Conrad does illustrate the need for individual thought by singling him out. Conrad critiques such patterns, in which individual in a society think like other members of their group without stopping to think for themselves. These groups have a few outstanding members, such as the native woman of arresting beauty or the red-haired pilgrim drunk with bloodthirstiness, but they mostly move together, make the same decisions, and have the same intentions. Groupthink is evident in named groups like the pilgrims and the natives. The obvious exception is Marlow, and his reaction against the colonial structures supported by people with names like “the Manager” and “the Lawyer” place him slightly outside this system. It is not quite an allegory, while he does allow them some individual characteristics of speech and dress, but they are for the most part stand-ins for larger groups. This novella is unusual in that the author does not name most of the characters in his book, other than assigning them titles that describe their larger organizational goals. Buy Study Guide Groupthink and Stock Characters