One of humanity's greatest fears is of the unknown. Not only for what may be there but how it could change the person that chooses to venture inside. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is a classic novel that details that very fear. One man,...

Blanchot’s view of the status of the narrative voice is very pertinent to any discussion of Heart of Darkness. ‘Something indeterminate’ and ‘spectral’ implies a lack of stability and centrality which is rendered strongly in the novel by the use...

Joseph Conrad’s work is an apparent staple of the 20th century British canon. Few literature students manage to weave their way toward a degree without being exposed to his iconic novella Heart of Darkness. While it is undeniably a powerful piece...

Marlon Brando gets no more than eighteen minutes of screen time in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, but his performance goes down as one of the most legendary in cinematic history. His portrayal of the Colonel Kurtz painted a dark picture of...

Though Joseph Conrad and Thomas Hobbes lived during different time periods and never had the opportunity to meet each other, both shared several ideas regarding human nature while they also harbored a few differences in ideologies. Conrad’s Heart...

The enigma of adventure literature and hyper-masculine prose reveals itself when the protagonist or a subordinate character cowers in the face of darkness. The unknown strikes the heart of man and satiates his inner desire to meet a force grander...

Authored in the midst of the peak of European imperialistic pursuits, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness documents the subjugation of the native African peoples by their rapacious European colonialist invaders. The primary protagonist and narrator...

On the surface, two novels such as Heart of Darkness and She probably seem drastically different. They are both tales of adventure, however, their plots are extremely contrasting. While Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness creates a somewhat bleak...

Joseph Conrad frames his novella Heart of Darkness as a story told within another story in order to draw attention to and subsequently critique the silence regarding the horrors that characterized nineteenth-century European imperialism—a time...

Cultural Cacophony: Conrad and Sembène on African Culture

Literature has always served as a window into the souls of cultures. However, the perspective from which one looks through that window can substantially shift one’s view of the culture in...

Following the journey of a man traveling through a river on a mission to kill an insane Colonel Kurtz, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now consist of very similar storylines. With many of the same quotes,...

In Marina MacKay’s The Cambridge Introduction to the Novel, she discusses the types of characters used in a novel in light of the humanists and structuralists debate. She explains that humanist critics tend to give characters a human dimension...

Heart of Darkness is a novel that is chockfull of metaphors alluding to light and shade; a literary device meant to connect the reader’s preconceived notions associated with meanings of light and dark. The story, written by Joseph Conrad in 1899,...

Through his exploration of narration in ‘Lord Jim’, Conrad can present readers with a novel which goes beyond the colonialist tropes of the seafaring tale. Marlow’s first-person narration orally relays the narrative for most of the novel, and his...

Despite the popular conception that Joseph Conrad's novel, Lord Jim, is merely a fanciful tale about sea-faring adventurers, this carefully crafted novel reaches far beyond its oceanic setting. Conrad's tale is a bittersweet portrayal of the...

D'autres fois, calme plat, grand miroir de mon dsespoir

-C. Baudelaire

Those acquainted with the works of Joseph Conrad know well enough that the author had a grand affinity for the sea. Certainly, this should be expected from a man who had spent...

In modern parlance, the word âromanticâ? is often and understandably used with a positive connotation. A romantic individual is most often recalled with fondness, if also with pity. The faults of such a person might be limited to mere naivete: âHe...

The romantic view of a seamanship is that the crew keeps with the ship through all types of weather and troubles. Yet in 1880, an event happened that shook this romantic belief throughout the world. The abandonment of the steamship Jeddah, along...

Beholding the flowers swaying with the breeze like a ballet dancer swinging her lithe body, watching the rain watering a dry land like a mother suckling her thirsty infant capture one of the interminable reasons for the immortal bond between...

The potential for self-discovery, complemented by the capacity for transformation, lies latent within each man. When circumstances instigate a strong stimulus for change, man finds a way to actuate his innate potential. In Joseph Conrad's The...

Joseph Conrad’s story The Secret Sharer is a first-person account written in two parts from the perspective of an untried sea captain. The separation of the two segments almost perfectly coincides with a distinction in the narrative voice. In the...

Disentangling the Twins of Conrad’s Psyche

Joseph Conrad spoke such truth about the inner working of humankind when he said through his character Razumov in Under Western Eyes, “A man's most open actions have a secret side to them” (pt. 1, ch. 2)....

Joseph Conrad’s work is an apparent staple of the 20th century British canon. Few literature students manage to weave their way toward a degree without being exposed to his iconic novella Heart of Darkness. While it is undeniably a powerful piece...

D'autres fois, calme plat, grand miroir de mon dsespoir

-C. Baudelaire

Those acquainted with the works of Joseph Conrad know well enough that the author had a grand affinity for the sea. Certainly, this should be expected from a man who had spent...