Heart of Darkness and the Warrior's Soul

By Joseph Conrad

Our encounter with Marlow's life-changing journey begins on the Thames in London, the great imperial capital, with his recollection of "the uttermost ends of the Earth". With brilliant economy, Conrad transports him to Congo on a quest that the writer himself undertook as a young man. There, working for the shadowy, but all-powerful "Company", Marlow hears of Mr Kurtz, who is described as a first-class Company servant. Once in the dark continent, Marlow is sent upriver to make contact with Kurtz, who is said to be very ill, and also to safeguard the security of the Inner Station. What he finds, after a gruelling journey to the interior, is a fellow European, who may or may not have gone mad, and who is worshipped as a god by the natives of the primitive interior. Kurtz, however, has paid a terrible price for his mastery. When Marlow finds him on his deathbed, he utters the famous and enigmatic last words: "The horror! The horror!"This line is often said to refer to the atrocities Conrad himself witnessed in Congo as it suffered under the colonial administration of the Belgians. He himself is said to have remarked that his story was based on "experience, pushed a little (and only very little) beyond the actual facts of the case". The metaphorical force of the story and the indifferent contempt of the African who announces "Mistah Kurtz - He dead" (brilliantly expropriated by TS Eliot) gives Heart of Darkness the most modern air of all the books that make up the movement called Modernism. Welcome to the 20th century, possibly English and American fiction's golden age.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 151477240X
• ISBN13: 9781514772409
• Release Date: June 2015
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 98 Pages
• Weight: 0.34 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A study of man - Warrior's Soul a plus

It is well written. The idea of a storyteller in the story is not unique but very effective. We could ponder over the word darkness for quite some time. The best way to ponder is with Cliff's Notes. I wanted him to get on with it. I guess I was a little impatient for the action and the conclusion. If it hadn't been for Cliff Notes, I would have missed half the things he was implying. A merchant company is missing an agent, Kurtz, and Marlowe must find him. Traveling through harsher environments than he imagined possible, he may have found what he was seeking. As with many of this type of epic, the physical distance or direction is not as important as the transformation it plays on one’s soul. I missed this book somehow in school. The reason I started to read this book before I became immersed in it was to see how close it came to the movie. No, not the movie you are thinking of. "Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death" (1988). The film was shot primarily in the avocado groves maintained by the University of California at Riverside (UCR), which the university uses for horticultural experiments. Adrienne Barbeau is Dr. Kurtz. The horror.... the horror... So you will want to see the movie “Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death” (1989) by Adrienne Barbeau as Dr. Kurtz. Or another adaptation, “Apocalypse Now” (1979).