Heart of Darkness

This novella by Joseph Conrad is rich with meaning and insight.  Every sentence is masterfully constructed using only the most accurately expressive words.  There is no insignificant fluff or meaningless phrases.  Rather, the sentences are so profound in their ability to relate the most innate and understandable yet hard-to-explain emotions and thoughts of humanity.  Moreover, he is able to explain the experiences Marlow has in such a detailed and clear way so that it brings the book to life.  Perhaps this is why Heart of Darkness is a shorter novella and not a full-blown novel: there is no need for the extra words.  Joseph Conrad, despite English being his fourth language, demonstrates complete mastery with symbolism, literary devices, and highly elevated diction.

Two of the more pronounced literary devices that Conrad leans on is personification and simile.  He mainly personifies nature, giving it a wise, omniscient, and powerful character.  Marlow comments, “And outside, the silent wilderness surrounding this cleared speck on the earth struck me as something great and invincible, like evil or truth, waiting patiently for the passing away of this fantastic invasion.”  Through this simile and personification, Marlow depicts nature as something that can reason.  Moreover, he depicts nature as being, one could say, more intelligent and wise than the men searching for the ivory.  Also, it appears as if nature is eternal.  It cannot be destroyed and it never goes away naturally, so it just waits patiently for the men to lose interest in their -according to nature- silly and invasive mission.

Conrad also uses very elevated diction, which enhances the meaning of his novella since each word is specialized in its specific meaning instead of vague such as “made” or “give.”  I really admire his writing style for its clarity and depth, as well as it’s intense description.  I also admire how Section 1 is written (perhaps all of the sections are written this way, however I wouldn’t know since I’ve only read the first section) in a way that it reminds me of a journal.  Conrad allows Marlow to freely add in his own commentary and bias, which makes the experiences a lot more real and interesting, especially because Marlow is a very interesting character.

Conrad also uses symbolism in a very unique way.  His metaphors are intricate and helpful.  One of his symbols is fog.  One of his more popular quotes says,

“The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut. But Marlow was not typical (if his propensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to him the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of these misty halos that sometimes are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine.”

Here, the initial narrator explains how Marlow’s stories display meaning like how “a glow brings out a haze.”  Hazes, like darkness, cause objects to be obscure.  However, unlike darkness, fog also causes objects to become distorted.  Light dissipates the obscurity and distortion to reveal everything in clarity.  The fog can be seen as a negative influence, or as evil, and the light as a positive one, or as goodness.  Learning of the good allows one to see the distortion for what it truly is: a distortion.  Without knowing how something is supposed to be, how can one know when it is wrong? In this way, a glow brings out a haze so that one can clearly see the objects in their true form. Perhaps in this way, Marlow will shed light on the twisted evils that arose from imperialism.

Now, I’m not sure that this is how Conrad intended this quote to be interpreted, but this is one of the meanings that I got from it that I found to be particularly significant.  Perhaps there is an even deeper meaning behind these words, and if so, then yay, because that’s always fun. Attributes of nature tend to be very insightful and helpful symbols because a lot of natural processes closely resemble psychological phenomena.  It’s as if the outside world of nature and the inside world of human nature form a sort of symmetry.  Conrad uses this symmetry to reveal the intangible truths of humanity in a visual way.