Jihyun's Entry on Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness is very different than the Street car named Desire and Crime and Punishment. When I first started to read Heart of Darkness I was very confuse. Because at first I didn't know who was the narrator of the novel. But, later I noticed that Marlow was basically telling the story. At first, the novel started with description of setting or background of the story. The novel also had a lot of descriptive image. One of the description remind me was "We looked at the venerable stream not in the vivid flush of a short day that comes and departs for ever, but in the august light of abiding memories." and "Lights of ships moved in the fairway a great stir of lights going up and going down. And further west on the upper reaches the place of the monstrous town was still marked ominously on the sky, a brooding gloom in sunshine, a lurid glare under the stars." Those both images represents lights and it is very descriptive.
At first it was hard to understand Joseph Conrad's diction in the book. He didn't really tell who is the narrator also most of story is focus on setting of sea (Congo River). I think this novel setting can refers to Joseph Conrad's journey in Congo when he was sailor. Basically this novel represent a lot about Conrad's life in Congo journey. Also, this was the time period of Imperialism, European had power to control over.In the book they use litery image "Has been one of the dark places of the earth". I think this imagery meant during under pressure (power control by European) ; it was a dark place for people (Colony). I think Joseph Conrad uses a lot of litery image to descibe the background and the characters.