Reviews with content warning for Colonisation - Heart of Darkness

Reviews tagging 'Colonisation'

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

68 reviews

jesterbrooks's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

This is my own opinion of the book. If you're reading this you may very well enjoy it more or less. For me, it was so dense and at the same time scattered in its narrative that when I finished it, I was hard-pressed to even recount the actual events. There is some good commentary in here on the nature of humanity, especially in the context of colonialism and exploitation, but it was too buried in the story (and perhaps unintentional, as there are racial slurs throughout).
If you intend to read this, be ready for a challenge, both narratively, morally, and in lexicon.

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startjpw23's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This book was difficult to read at points because of the racist attitudes and actions of many of the characters. I recognize it was a product of its time. But I am not of that time. The language was very evocative. The book is wonderfully written.

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ragna_'s review

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dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

This is really fascinatingly written; a very evocative portrayal of a man journeying both into the barbarity of his own culture and the psychological darkness of his on mind. The elliptic narration that grows more and more unsure of its own truthfulness is genuinely frightening and unsettling and had me at the edge of my seat. What does of course not work anymore is the use of local Congolese (for lack of a better discriptor) cultures as a "prehistoric mirror" the "savagery" of which reveals the darkness also lurking within European culture, I don't need to tell anyone that this is racist. But it's also a story with a distinctly anti-colonialist position, depicting and denouncing the mindless hypocrotical violence inflicted onto Africans under Colonialism, published in a mostly pro-Colonialism magazine, no less. So I think this is an interesting study in how anti-colonialist writing in Europe developed and how racist rhetoric was still very much a part of that, which we can use to reflect on our current political rhetoric, especially progressive ones which are nonetheless undoubtedly still marked by racist bias. I would recommend this both for quality of writing and relevance to contemporary discourse.

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jemappellecat's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

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jasminawithab's review against another edition

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challenging slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

2.0

read for a uni class and it was okay

i hated pretty much every character but i got a 100 on my essay for it so thats something i guess

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raincorbyn's review

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adventurous dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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arborapollonis's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

An incredibly interesting take on 19th/20th century imperialism, certainly a dense work (every sentence is important), but very much worth the trouble

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scorpi07's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

2.0

I listened to this one to fulfill the prompt: A book I should have read in high school.
I’m not sure why they were teaching this in high school. I guess the storytelling style (a narrator retelling Marlow’s narration) is interesting and the prose itself is well written and artfully packed with metaphors. However, with all of the options out there, this is a poor book choice to critique colonialism, or to suggest imperialism is bad. Marlow is racist and doesn’t grow much, and the objectification of black people is pervasive throughout the book. Gross.

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savannah1975's review against another edition

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Overly descriptive writing style, I found this very hard to read, I felt it just kept going with no point or plot

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sleepylit's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

It’s an interesting piece to analyze, but it’s a really slow story.

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