The Horror, The Horror.

Heart of Darkness, is in many senses a psychological novel, however as I believe Conrade said, its ment mainly to be an experience. An expression of the madness and rawer nature of humanity, which Conrade through Marlow experienced while working on the rivers of the Congo. It can be look at desperation, a voyage through the darker qualities of the human mind, the hollow excuses European Colonists used to enslave the so called inferor "savages" so they might save their souls, and so on but whats so captivating about this particular tale is that it can be this and so much more, depending on the perspective of the reader. Many people when reading this book look too hard and exclaim they never got the meaning, but the meaning is almost what you yourself make of it, and sadly this is a reason why my class mates at least did not finish Conrade's book.

In Heart of Darkness, there are only a few charcters named, Marlow, Kurtz and the river boat captian Marlow is replacing. The rest take on the sterotypes of their characters, and Marlow and Kurtz can be seen as the light and dark side of the same character, Marlow as what he is, and Kurtz as what he could become. The rest of the characters are simply known as the intended, bricklayer who is not a bricklayer, Russian, and so on. Heart of Darkness focuses on young Marlow's determination to explore the maps he saw as a youngster. This story is full of symbolism, the glittering of the Africans contrasting the Darkness of the Ivory mad Europeans. There are also the patterns of three, three women involved in the plot, three stops in the trip, three breaks in the story etc. It is very complex.

I particularly liked the scene where the illusive Kurtz is brought in before Marlow sick and dying but still worshiped as a a god, and Marlow realizes the only reason Kurtz survyed that long is because he is driven by greed. Or how Marlow, somewhat niave comes into the story saying he couldn't suffer a liar but then ends up lying to Kurtz's intended, ultimatly discovering his own mortality. Everyone seems to be enamored with Kurtz but Marlow sees what he truely is.
What I liked about Heart of Darkness is the exploration of humanity, and how the scences are so vivid, like a painting. Also the manner in which Marlow draws the audience which the reader is part of on the river boat years later into the tale.
Though it is critized for some of its vagness, it serves the purpose of allowing one to fill in the missing parts. I throughly enjoyed this work, its short but very meaningful. Equally as good is Joseph Conrade's SecretSharer.