Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad, in his story Heart of Darkness, portrays the journey to the inner evil within all of humanity, and how it can be avoided, hidden, and kept in check if one so chooses. The novel’s dominant theme was that of good versus evil, and how we are faced with a choice between the two everyday of our lives. Marlow, the narrator of the novel, is faced with this task in his quest to find Kurtz, who symbolize his own hidden and evil nature. The novel also addresses the issue of colonization, and the imperialist nature of the white men as they take away the identities of the native Africans around them. It is in the conditions of the interior that the true nature of man is revealed, and the inhumanity of man to his own fellow man is shown.
In this story, the use of descriptive words was a very important part of its overall theme. Of the many passages and quotes throughout Heart of Darkness, the one that I found to be the most effective was on pages 105 to 106. Conrad writes:

Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest. The air was warm, thick, heavy, sluggish. There was no joy in the brilliance of sunshine. The long stretches of the waterway ran on, deserted, into the gloom of over-shadowed distances. On silvery sand-banks hippos and alligators sunned themselves side by side. The broadening waters flowed through a mob of wooded islands; you lost your way on that river as you would in a desert, and butted all day long against shoals, trying to find the channel, till you thought yourself bewitched and cut off fir ever from everything you had known once—somewhere far away—in another existence perhaps.

I found this passage to be very strong in conveying its message because of how the natural things can be compared to aspects of a person’s identity. The adjective use of this passage makes its purpose clear, particularly the use of impenetrable, lost, bewitched, and gloom. These words all work together to create the sense of darkness and evil that is surrounding Marlow as he makes his journey up the river, searching for who he really is inside. The river is a symbol of his soul, and all the snags that he hits are showing the problems that Marlow is experiencing in his internal struggles. This quote was full of symbolism and I found it to be a good description of the journeys people take to discover who they are.
This story was definitely one that, although it was, as Mr. Klimas liked to say, “dense,” it had a very strong symbolic nature to it. I connected with its focus on the quest for identity, because most people go through a period where they have no idea WHO they really are underneath all the layers that they build up to please those around them. It offers a glimpse into the darkness that Conrad feels we all have within us, while pointing out that we are capable of overcoming this evil side of our conscience. The true heart of darkness is within us, the little piece of our life that we do our best to hide from those around us, and at some point we all have to choose between the dark and the light. Kind of like Star Wars, we have to make a choice between good and evil within ourselves.