He described Heart of Darkness as "a wild story" of a journalist who becomes manager of a station in the (African) interior and makes himself worshipped by a tribe of savages. When Conrad began to write the novella, eight years after returning from Africa, he drew inspiration from his travel journals. He guided the ship up the tributary Lualaba River to the trading company's innermost station, Kindu, in Eastern Congo Free State Marlow has similar experiences to the author.
While sailing up the Congo River from one station to another, the captain became ill and Conrad assumed command. In 1890, at the age of 32, Conrad was appointed by a Belgian trading company to serve on one of its steamers. Joseph Conrad based Heart of Darkness on his own experiences in the Congo. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Heart of Darkness 67th on their list of the 100 best novels in English of the twentieth century. It provided the inspiration for Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 film Apocalypse Now. Originally issued as a three-part serial story in Blackwood's Magazine to celebrate the thousandth edition of the magazine, Heart of Darkness has been widely re-published and translated into many languages. Conrad offers parallels between London ("the greatest town on earth") and Africa as places of darkness. The novella's setting provides the frame for Marlow's story of his obsession with the successful ivory trader Kurtz.
Marlow is given a text by Kurtz, an ivory trader working on a trading station far up the river, who has "gone native" and is the object of Marlow's expedition.Ĭentral to Conrad's work is the idea that there is little difference between "civilised people" and "savages." Heart of Darkness implicitly comments on imperialism and racism. Although Conrad does not name the river where the narrative takes place, at the time of writing the Congo Free State, the location of the large and economically important Congo River, was a private colony of Belgium's King Leopold II.
The novel is widely regarded as a critique of European colonial rule in Africa, whilst also examining the themes of power dynamics and morality. It tells the story of Charles Marlow, a sailor who takes on an assignment from a Belgian trading company as a ferry-boat captain in the African interior.
Heart of Darkness (1899) is a novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad. Heart of Darkness was first published as a three-part serial story in Blackwood's Magazine.
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