Reviews - Heart of Darkness: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Sources, Criticism

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5.84k reviews for:

Heart of Darkness: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Sources, Criticism

Joseph Conrad

3.03 AVERAGE

alextriedlife's review against another edition

3.5

challenging dark fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

rottenjester's review against another edition

"We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there- there you could look at a thing monstrous and free. It was unearthly, and the men were- no, they were not inhuman."

Heart of Darkness explores the omnipresent force of nature in man and his struggle to reason with his body upon which mortality has been inscribed against his will. It is the "great spirit of the past" which nature takes from the individual after he has borne it in life and embodied it in death. To sacrifice all to that which has birthed us- man and nature are involved in a constant struggle for power. We cannot conquer that which we depend on which is why man chooses to conquer himself instead.

He convinces himself that those of a different complexion are animals and therefore closer to nature which seeks to destroy him. We fear that which we cannot explain (death, nature, humanity) so instead of exposing ourselves to curiosity we shackle the unfamiliar so it may not grow beyond our control. Man, who fails to control death, inflicts it upon others to disguise himself as immortal.

Nature which is considered primal is undermined by reason which is defined as rational. Yet reason bares its teeth when trained by the ignorant: it is reason which enslaves, reason which kills, reason which divides. Ideology becomes truth when exploiting the fear of the desperate masses. Reason makes an animal out of man just as nature does- except we use our natural instincts to preserve ourselves and reason to diminish others. Reason is employed to bargain where nature refuses to bend.

We soothe ourselves with violence to grow accustomed to death, condemning others to distract ourselves from our mortality. Yet we all die the same. When man sees no reason in nature he makes his own so as not to succumb to despair.

Not sure how much this actually applies to the narrative at hand- I forgot all about the plot and was working mainly with the lines I marked. Something about how we use an idealized past to justify destroying what is foreign to us, calling non-whites 'savages' to disguise our own savagery. Conrad's language is very powerful and really added to the eerie atmosphere of the novel. Lots to think about for such a short book, will probably reread in the future.

flibbob's review against another edition

1.25

dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

porcelainheart's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous challenging reflective tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

nincrony1's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

Respect it a lot and will definitely re-read it at some point. I did struggle with the rambly narrative but enjoyed the prose and general mood of the story.

eliterature's review against another edition

Hit author Joseph Kanye and his anti-imperialist classic, Bart of Darkness, which was the first episode of The Simpsons' sixth season, have reached a level of legendhood within the margins of the "classics you read in high school," alongside J.D. Salinger, John Steinbeck, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Owen Wilson, with his 17th-century gothic text, Wow: The Owen Wilson Story. But I'd be spreading a lie if I were to tell you that Conrad's hit novel is some awful pompous schlock--no, it's actually quite good. I'm just a jerk with a keyboard who writes stupid stuff blah blah blah blah blah

Heart of Darkness is a book about... imperialism. Duh. I mean, that's like its whole thing. While yea, one could talk about the book as a work of psychological fiction, it seems pretty blaring and rather hard to ignore in terms of seeing it as commentary on colonialism. Because like, y'know. Marlowe drops little sarcastic anti-colonialist lines throughout his retelling of the story, noting the cruelty of them. In fact, one could go even as far as to say that the heart of darkness itself, the jungle, is sort of hinting at it. Like, the title expects you to be like, "Ok, it's called Heart of Darkness, and by darkness, they mean the skin color of the enslaved native population," but then, by the end, you're like, "Ahh, the heart of darkness means like spiritual darkness--the mystery of what drives these white men to become monsters (like Kurtz)." They say darkness a lot in this book, also. If you like when in books they say the title and it's like big and dramatic and stuff, this is a good book for you, as they say "heart of darkness" five or six times.

So anyway, Jesoph Cornad is pretty good at writing, even if this book can be a little confusing, and I have a hard time imagining Marlowe sounding like anything other than an Appalachian grandpa addicted to cough syrup.