Heart of Darkness

In Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, there is a great interpretation of the feelings of the characters and uncertainties of the Congo. Although Africa, nor the Congo are ever really referred to, the Thames river is mentioned as support. This intricate story reveals much symbolism due to Conrad's theme based on the lies and good and evil, which interact together in every man. Today, of course, the situation has changed. Most literate people know that by probing into the heart of the jungle Conrad was trying to convey an impression about the heart of man, and his tale is universally read as one of the first symbolic masterpieces of English prose (Graver,28). In any event, this story recognizes primarily on Marlow, its narrator, not about Kurtz or the brutality of Belgian officials. Conrad wrote a brief statement of how he felt the reader should interpret this work: "My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel-it is above all, to make you see.(Conrad 1897)Knowing that Conrad was a novelist who lived in his work, writing about the experiences were as if he were writing about himself. "Every novel contains an element of autobiography-and this can hardly be denied, since the creator can only explain himself in his creations."(Kimbrough,158) The story is written as seen through Marlow's eyes. Marlow is a follower of the sea. His voyage up the Congo is his first experience in freshwater navigation. He is used as a tool, so to speak, in order for Conrad to enter the story and tell it out of his own philosophical mind. He longs to see Kurtz, in the hope's of appreciating all that Kurtz finds endearing in the African jungle. Marlow does not get the opportunity to see Kurtz until he is so disease-stricken he looks more like death than a person. There are no good looks or health. In the story Marlow remarks that Kurtz resembles "an animated image of death carved out of old ivory." Like Marlow, Kurtz is seen as an honorable man to many admirers; but he is also a thief, murderer, raider, persecutor, and above all he allows himself to be worshipped as a god. Both men had good intentions to seek, yet Kurtz seemed a "universally genius" lacking basic integrity or a sense of responsibility (Roberts,43). In the end they form one symbolic unity. Marlow and Kurtz are the light and dark selves of a single person. Meaning each one is what the other might have been. Every person Marlow meets on his venture contributes something to the plot as well as the overall symbolism of the story. Kurtz is the violent devil Marlow describes at the story's beginning. It was his ability to control men through fear and adoration that led Marlow to signify this. Throughout the story Conrad builds an unhealthy darkness that never allows the reader to forget the focus of the story. At every turn he sees evil lurking within the land. Every image reflects a dreary, blank one. The deadly Congo snakes to link itself with the sea and all other rivers of