Final Thoughts on Heart of Darkness

After reading “Heart of Darkness” I found myself utterly frustrated with the writing style that Joseph Conrad used to get his message across. Sometimes when trying to find the underlying message of the story, I would find myself incredibly lost and needed to read back in-order to find out what exactly I missed. However while I found the writing incredibly complex, I thought that the story, and the message of “heart of darkness” were very deep, and thoughtful.
For example I saw the book as more of a “stop abusing the natives of Africa” book, instead of a racist one. Yes the way that the natives were portrayed in the story made them look idiotic, but at the time the book was written, that’s what people thought of them as.
Rather by showing the natives as innocent pawns of imperialism, it raises a sort of sympathy for the natives in the reader.
I also saw “Heart of Darkness” as a very anti-imperialism novel. It shows the ivory traders who represent the spreading ideal of civilization, as snobby, condescending men who abuse the natives to get what they want, yet they don’t give them a second thought afterwards. This shows that while civilization is regarded as an orderly, and maybe even advanced ideal, the fact is that during the time Conrad wrote his novel, civilization had become more of a plague for the African natives, rather than a helpful resource for them.
Also the ending of the book showed that Conrad believed that with the growth of civilization, came the death of barbarianism. Kurtz who is the representation of the savage “dark” part of the soul is always at conflict with the ivory traders, and especially the ship captain who plans to bring about Kurtz’s downfall. As the traders journey deeper and deeper into the jungle, Kurtz gets weaker and soon enough he has no way of fighting his illness, and dies. This proves that as civilization began to spread farther into Africa, the freedom and chaos of barbarianism began to shrivel away.
posted by Eddie D.