"Heart of Darkness" was a novel written by English-Polish novelist and author Joseph Conrad. Although the story is about the adventures that the main character, Marlow, lives through while traveling in Africa for an ivory company based in Belgium, it also narrates the terrible experiences when coming face to face with the truth about colonialism in Africa and also the darkness within the human soul when met with brutality and savagery. Finally, it is the story of the meeting of two mirror souls, Marlow and Kurtz.
1 and 2. The reason for not identifying Africa or Congo by name comes from the idea of this continent still being unknown and mysterious to European citizens. The lack of name adds an aura of mystery and even danger but also of darkness. It also establishes the difference between civilization (Europe) and barbarism (Africa). The forest is also significant because it adds darkness and danger to the whole idea of the book, intensifying the obscurity in the novel. The mention of time of day, night or day, helps with the idea of transition that the author poses between light and darkness, civilization and barbarity.
3 and 4. The importance of the people in the Belgian Ivory Company is that they set the ideas that will develop further on in the book. The idea that Europe will save the savages of Africa through culturalization, the pretense of the company with its colors of being the savior and light in the darkness. The role that time and also fate plays within the story (evidenced by the old women weaving), the secretiveness (evidenced by the man who gives Marlow his instructions without interest but who only cares about the Company´s interests being safeguarded). Kurtz manuscript embodies the ideals with which Kurtz first went into Congo, of himself bringing changes and reform to a savage land, but in the end, it shows how the jungle and the difficulties and circumstances in Africa bring out the worst in him, turning him into a savage and brutal killer who earns the worship of the natives. The final postscrip shows this reality as well.
5 and 6. Conrad uses light and dark imagery all throughout the book and particularly the first part of it. This helps the reader to understand the perception of the narrator on the events and the actors within. The perception of Brussels as a white sepulchre, Africa as a dark land, among others, tries to set the idea of the contrast between what might or is perceived as good and what is not. Marlow finally lies to Kurtz´s intended because he sees her as an innocent who does not need to come to know the truth about the man she loved, the man he turned into while living in Congo.
8 and 9 (7 is the same as 4). The technique used by Conrad is called Frame Narrative, also known as a story within a story. This is seen when the story begins in the Thames River, in London, being told by a Narrator and then Marlow taking the telling of his own story after the initial Narrator gives him the chance. The story of Marlow stands between the original Narrator´s story and his own. This kind of technique allows for several stories to be told within a same novel with multiple narrators, but also, it allows the reader to understand that the story is not an experience being lived by the storyteller but something already experienced. Marlow is a mirror image of Kurtz and at some points he admires the way that Kurtz is able to let go of his restraints but he does not see eye-to-eye with Kurtz on the way he managed himself and his post as an agent in Africa. Marlow also refuses to let go of his civility and cultural characteristics to become the way Kurtz became.
