Uses Of Symbolism In Joseph Conrad's Heart Of Darkness

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.

I have come to realize that Heart of Darkness can be regarded as a story within a story. It centers on the protagonist, Marlow, who is travelling up the Congo River to meet Kurtz. There he notices that the natives are treated

Darkness, as expected, symbolizes evil and madness. As Marlow travels into the unexplored region of the world, he discovers the evil that lives there in the form of the Europeans, who essentially were meant to bring enlightenment. In the pursuit of ivory (that is something physically light), the white man has embraced the darkest places of its nature; its primitive self.

Women (Kurt’s painting)

Marlow and Kurtz both agree that women symbolism the goodness in humanity. They are the decency and purity that is left in the world, especially with all the evil that Marlow and Kurtz’s eyes have seen. They are regarded as having their own world in order not be whitewashed with the atrocities that are present in the real world. Kurtz’s painting of his idealized vision of women against a black background holding a torch and is blindfolded also represents this ideology of the women in their own world. Since women are the keepers of all good things, they must be kept from the truth of the dark (thus the blindfold) even as they are trying to change the world with their light