Literary Devices Used In Joseph Conrad's Heart Of Darkness

Imagery is used strongly in this book and it’s especially shown at many points during. It helps to aid the reader’s thought process and imagination of what happened in the story by using specifics such as words and phrases to help one

The use of literary devices illustrates the physical actions of the protagonist, which describe the protagonist's thoughts. Moreover, the thoughts influence the similar choices of the chronological order of the events depicts the characterization of the protagonist. Lastly, the authors’ ability

Because Joseph Conrad’s mother and father died when he was only 8 and 12, respectively, he was raised by his maternal uncle Tadeusz Bobrowski, a landowner who lived in Cracow, Poland (Merriman).

The most remarkable, effective, and engaging literary device used is imagery. The author describes situations and explains in detail or elaborates on the situation. “Since the Japanese killed his mother and four brothers and sisters, he started eating mud” (144). Cristobal Alvarez was the son of Pilar Cuneta-Alvarez and the brother of 4 siblings. Brainard shows how badly the Japanese traumatized him by describing his behavior; “... the Virgins, who took care of Cris, had grand attacks over those mud-eating episodes” (144). Cris ate mud after hearing of his relatives’ deaths.

In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the natives of Africa – the Blacks – were represented in such a way that they seemed to have close to little or no value compared to the Whites. The constant use of animal imagery in the novel is both a comparison and a symbol that has been used in order to dehumanize any character that was not White. As such, it can be said that the novel seeks to represent the Blacks of Africa as lowlife beings, prehistoric barbarians and savage creatures that have no rights to say anything for themselves. However, Conrad also shows a flipside to the typical ideology of Whites being superior to Blacks by representing the Blacks as a strong and restrained group of people, confined only due to helplessness.

One major symbol in Heart of Darkness is fog. The fog represents darkness and also helps distort the story by leaving just enough information to let the reader make their own theory of the scene. Although light doesn’t always represent goodness or enlightenment either. As Marlow had said “sunlight can be made to lie, too”. (Part III) The symbol of the light and dark is repeated throughout the novella and is also contextual. Also flies is one of many major symbols, death. Flies are mentioned twice and surrounded bodies each time. First when an agent dies (“In the steady buzz of flies the homeward-bound agent was lying finished and insensible.”) (Part I) and also when Kurtz dies: “A continuous shower of small flies streamed upon the lamp,

Ignorance of another's personal values or situation results in an impassable schism between the two parties. People fail to understand each other, and as such, they regard each other in lower lights. In “Heart of Darkness”, Joseph Conrad, through Marlow, writes his novella through a lense of ignorance and the perspective of the typical white person of the time in order to relate his story to the reader. Marlow and the accountant are contrasted with Kurtz to display the effects of evil on an individual.

Hunt Hawkins presents the controversy that Joseph Conrad’s, Heart of Darkness, encounters, as its contents portray Africans as dehumanizing, savage, and uncivilized beings. In order to provide a sufficient amount of information with regards to the controversy, Hawkins introduces the analysis of distinct scholars to describe racism, imperialism, and human nature. As a result, an analysis of the characters are provided to the audience and allow an individual to understand why Conrad decided to write Heart of Darkness the way he did. Thus, during this process, Hawkins describes the manifestation of the darkness that eventually consumes Kurtz.

The lights from the city reflected the Thames River because London is described as being light, the light symbolizes Conrad’s view of civilization. According to Conrad civilization is where evil is present but ignored. The light is the knowledge that is gained through exploring. Conrad uses Africa and the Congo River to represent the evil that waits in the unknown. The darkness is said to be full of savages and cannibals it is further emphasized as being the uncivilized part of the world where people eat people and the savages wait in the trees and in the darkness. Africa in this novella is portrayed as “the Heart of Darkness” the place where the men’s inner evil is exposed, this is done through their thoughts and actions.

Everyone has their own opinions of which cultures are civilized and which are savage. A culture which is civilized is one where morals are set in place and and there is intellectual advancement. Civilized cultures follow a set a moral given to them usually by a government. A savage culture is where there are no morals in place. The people part of this culture do not follow any morals only hoping to survive, with no government intact. They are also not very advanced when it come to technology or intellectual advancement. This is the types of things that make a culture civilized or savage. Although there is a blurred line between both of these cultures.

A gun gives you the opportunity, but a thought pulls the trigger. In this world, there are many life changing situations that can test one's sanity. Such situations can capture one's mind leading the mind to be on the verge of psychotic. Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, grants the characters with a series of insane scenes that can generate question of psychotic characters. Conrad uses psychological influence throughout the novella specifically in the areas of, physical health, geographical surroundings, and eerie obsession to lead to the overall truth of madness.

To be bluntly honest, after having gotten to page 8 without having understood a word of the text, I was very frustrated. Not only did Heart of Darkness have an old-fashioned English style of writing but the first few pages were completely filled with references, symbols, metaphors and vivid imagery. I found myself either looking up each metaphor to understand it better or rereading each imagery because of its vividness. Thankfully, as the book progressed and Marlow’s story began, the plot became clearer and the story started to carry on more smoothly.

Often in literature, the physical journey the main character takes represents their psychological growth. In Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, Marlow’s journey into the heart of the Congo represents his progression into the darkest parts of his mind. As he travels deeper into the foreign terrain, he begins to question the world around him and himself.

‘Heart of Darkness’ was written in 1899 by a Polish novelist Joseph Conrad, about the expedition up the Congo River in the Heart of Africa. This essay will mainly deal with the reference of the ‘darkness’ in the novel and it even deals with the theme which will further support the statement.

The nineteenth century has been called "the age of the novel", as the last of the major forms of literature to appear. The novel was one of the most fluent, diverse, and unpredictable of literary forms. It was the dominant literary form which reached its apotheosis in the Last century. The novel may seem modern but is historically related to other literary forms such as drama and the epic. It took many forms when it emerged in England, and various techniques have been employed by writers with a variety of purpose.