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On the Three Themes of Heart of Darkness
ZHANG Song-cun
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DOI:10.17265/1539-8072/2017.02.006
Sichuan University of Arts and Science, Dazhou, China
Heart of Darkness is one of the masterpieces of Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), which shows the author’s great humanity and his unreserved horror at the crimes committed by the colonists and imperialists all over the world. This thesis tries to analyze its three themes: the Colonists’ material essence, the dark side of human nature, and the disillusionment of civilization. Kurtz, the main character in the novel, is characterized by his greed for material gain and power. The dark side of human nature is reflected in Kurtz’s cruel behavior towards the natives, his sense of superiority to the marginalized, and his dominance in discourse over the colonial people. Along with the colonists’ crazy behaviors, there is disillusion with the modern civilization.
Heart of Darkness, colonists, human nature, disillusionment of civilization
CHENG, Y. J. (1995). Madness and fiction in Conrad, Woolf and Lessing. Michigan: UMI Company.
Conrad, J. (1983). Heart of darkness. London: Penguin books.
Conrad, J. (1999). Preface. In The nigger of the “Narcissus”. New York: Dover Publications.
Greiner, D. J. (1989). Heart of darkness: Out of Africa some new thing rarely comes. Journal of Modern Literature, 15(4), 461-474.