General Annotated Bibliography

Annotated Bibliography Blagodarskiy, Vas. “Critical Analysis of Social Issues in ‘Heart of Darkness’ by Joseph Conrad.” Articlesbase. 20 Oct. 2009. Web. 30 May 2013. The main social issue in Heart of Darkness deals with abandoning European morals when faced with the power of colonialism. The two main characters, Kurtz and Marlow – once noble men – both face this challenge. Thus, the main theme in the novella can be defined as absurdly hypocritical practices of imperialism, with motifs such as ironic understatements, inability to accurately word things due to their horribleness, and, of course, darkness. Brown, Alistair. “Heart Of Darkness And Victorian Anthropology.” The Pequod. Web. 30 May 2013. Well known for the way in which it has many layers of narration, Heart of Darkness recreates the detached ways in which the Victorian anthropologist gathered data on, and represented, native culture. In the scene with the 'African Queen,' Conrad creates a dramatic drawing together of objective, rational, Europeanism with abstract, magical Africanism, a crossing of the "shadow lines" which exposes the falsehood of making a scientific distinction between observer and patron, and observed and patronized. Kaplan, Carola. “Colonizers, Cannibals, and the Horror of Good Intentions in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.” Ed. Harold Bloom. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2003. 67-80. Print. This is a great starting point for any research into critical approaches as far as “Heart of Darkness” is concerned because of how far reaching the discussions in the article are. Not only does Kaplan talk about Kipling-esque colonization (see Raskin below) and morality, she provides an analysis of the text in which she finds this tension between white and black, right and wrong, and civilized and savage. The other great part

of this analysis is that Kaplan discusses other members of the cannon of Western literature and how Conrad projects British colonial fears and motivations rather than Achebean racism. Lackey, Michael. "The Moral Conditions for Genocide in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness." College Literature 32.1 (2005): 20-41. Print. Many of Conrad’s critics will analyze “Heart of Darkness” through the lens of morality, but Lackey makes it clear that doing so “is problematic at best and completely misguided at worst” (Lackey 21). While much of the first part of Lackey’s argument centers around Judeo-Christian morals as outlined by the Bible, it is useful to see how contradictory such a view of the novella can be. Furthermore, Lackey finishes his article by discussing British society, interpretation, and the characters themselves (particularly Kurtz), and how they could, but should not, be analyzed through the dichotomies and contradictions of morality. Lawtoo, Nidesh. “A Picture of Europe: Possession Trance in Heart of Darkness.” Novel: A Forum on Fiction 45.3 (Fall 2012): 409-432. Print. The article discusses the representation of Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" whose essays interpret as presenting a picture of Europe rather than an image of Africa, and which critics use as evidence to prove Conrad's racism. It particularly focuses on the rituals written by Conrad wherein Africans dance to the sound of drums in a state of frenzy. It states, however, that the representation's interpretation might be used as a means to realize the dreadfulness of ritual frenzy in any place. Lawtoo, Nidesh. “The Horror of Mimesis: Enthusiastic Outbreak[s] in Heart of Darkness.” Conradiana 42.1/2 (Spring-Summer 2010): 46-74. Print. A literary criticism of Joseph Conrad's novel "Heart of Darkness" is presented. It explores the idea of identification in

Charlie Marlow's ambivalent relationship to his double, Mr. Kurtz, which it says fits Conrad's career-long fascination with the homo duplex or double human. A discussion on Conrad's concept of affective mimesis, a form of behavioral imitation that creates a psychological confusion between self and others is cited. Mimetic sexism and colonial ideology are also discussed. McCarthy, Jeffrey Mathes. "A Choice Of Nightmares: The Ecology Of Heart Of Darkness.” Modern Fiction Studies 55.3 (Fall 2009): 620-648. Print. The article discusses nature in literature. It focuses on Joseph Conrad's novel "Heart of Darkness" where the moral and ecological limits of empire building is shown. He believes that Conrad used the ivory instead of the rubber as the center of conflict in his novel because it shows a more detrimental relationship between people and nature in Congo's ecosystem under the European regime. Mongredien, Phil. “Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.” The Guardian Blog Review. 22 Jan 2011. Web. 30 May 2013. It is tempting to see Heart of Darkness as a masterfully constructed parable on human nature (witness Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola's film adaptation, in which the action was transposed to south-east Asia) but as historian Adam Hochschild has pointed out in King Leopold's Ghost, about the king's rape of the Congo, Conrad himself was quite clear that it was based on specific events he had witnessed, saying it was "experience… pushed a little (and only very little) beyond the actual facts of the case." Despite his protestations, this is undeniably an invaluable historical document offering a glimpse into the horrific human consequences of the imperial powers' scramble for Africa as much as it is a compelling tale.

Ophir, Ella. “Sincerity And Self-Revelation In Joseph Conrad.” Modern Language Review 107.2 (April 2012): 341-363. Print. Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness has been taken to exemplify the new ethic of authenticity that displaced the old ideal of sincerity. Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, Nostromo, and The Secret Agent do interrogate and undermine the value of the old ideal, but do not promote a conception of authenticity. Rather, they lead to a radically revised conception of sincerity, one that is stripped of moral and social value, but preserves the possibility of articulate self-revelation. Sincerity becomes aleatory, even amoral, but it survives to name those moments at which, Conrad maintains, feeling and language can and do bind, and obscured interiority stands revealed. Peters, John G. “Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and the World of Western Women.” Studies in Short Fiction 37.1 (Winter 2012): 87-112. Print. This essay analyzes the treatment by the character of Charlie Marlow of the Western women in the short story "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad. It describes the attitude of Marlow toward women and those of the sepulchral city who believe the universe to be rational and safe. It also shows the important role of women in the psychological and ontological survival of Marlow, in affording him a sanctuary for his mind as well as refuge from the chaos and indifference of the universe. Qasaimeh, Yousof A. and Joshi, Monika. “Journey from the Heart of Darkness to the Heart of Sadness: Fiction v/s Reality.” International Journal of Psychological Studies 1.1 (June 2009): 42-50. Print. The purpose of this study is to perceive the give - and - take between art and real life conditions. It presents information on the writing of the novel Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad whose continental experience and familiarity with the

imperial milieu in the east and Africa rendered him capable of bringing much greater knowledge of real politic into literary work more than any one else. It seems fruitful to see how the authors deal with the gap between how things could or should be in a given society, and how they really are. International politics is devoid of moral values as can be seen in the case of Congo in Heart of Darkness (a fictional situation) and in the present Iraqi situation (a real- life situation). In Heart of Darkness there is a suggestion that the exploited will some day, sooner or later, rise in revolt against the exploitation of the foreign rule. Can oppressed nations like Congo and Iraq hope to conclude this tiresome journey in the near future and set out a fresh on new journey, perhaps one into the Heart of Happiness? The answer to this question remains unknown at the present time. In spite of this, people of these nations should be optimize, keeping in mind that it is always darkest before the dawn, and that Stars shine out the most brilliantly through dark clouds. Rangarajan, Sudarsan. “Conrad's Heart of Darkness.” Explicator 56.3 (Spring 1998): 139. Print. In Heart of Darkness, the mythic phenomena of the hero's journey of initiation and his descent into the underworld have been well recognized. The protagonist, Marlow, incarnates both good and evil. His mission to redeem and immortalize Mr. Kurtz allows one to identify Marlow with the Roman hero Aeneas, yet Marlow's character has a fiendish side that recalls the image of Charon, the ferryman who transports the dead across the River Styx. Several striking similarities between Marlow and Charon emerge from a closer examination of the narrative. Romero, Jorge Sacido. “Failed Exorcism: Kurtz's Spectral Status And Its Ideological Function In Conrad's 'Heart Of Darkness.'” Atlantis 33.2 (December 2011): 43-60. Print. It is quite remarkable how Marlow's recurrent characterization of Kurtz as a specter in Conrad's

'Heart of Darkness' has passed almost unnoticed in the large body of criticism on the novella. This essay interprets Marlow's persistent expression of loyalty, to Kurtz's ghost as the last in a series of ideological strategies that endow the imperialist culture in which he is embedded with a minimum degree of consistency that counterbalances the debilitating exposure of its evils. The ensuing pages develop this central thesis concerning Kurtz's ghostly status by drawing on Slavoj Žižek's Lacanian approach to the ideological function of the specter, which allows the author to diverge from other readings of 'Heart of Darkness' relevant to this topic. An exploration of the logic of spectrality helps to explain why the novella falls short in its indictment of imperialist ideology, a failure which, in the last instance, amounts to an endorsement. Rudrum, David. “Living Alone: Solipsism In Heart Of Darkness.” Philosophy & Literature 29.2 (October 2005): 409-427. Print. The article discusses the representation of solipsism and the failure of language to communicate adequately basing on the novel "Heart of Darkness," by Joseph Conrad. The novel is described as affected by the limits of subjectivity. According to philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, language, selfhood and worldhood are interrelated and limited. He also sees the self as essentially isolated from other selves. Singh, Frances B. "Terror, Terrorism, and Horror in Conrad's Heart of Darkness." Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas 5.2 (2007): 199-218. Print. Singh’s paper considers “Heart of Darkness” as an example of rhetorical counterterrorism, an approach that is not only relevant to modern Western socio-political concerns, but also provides a different and more optimistic view of the novel than critics such as Achebe. The article uses many examples of “horror” and “terror” inducing

elements from traditional Gothic works as a set-up for what Conrad does to disprove them. The main focus of Singh’s paper in this regard is on teeth, in which he says Gothic traditions have made teeth a device for inducing terror (think vampires), but for Conrad, the cannibals and their teeth are neither horrifying nor terrifying. Singh finishes by looking at language, something that many other critics focus on (see Krupat, for example), and how it influences Conrad’s softening and defiance of traditionally “scary” narrative devices. Skinner, Stephen. “Obscurity, Apophasis, and the Critical Imagination: The Unsayable in Heart of Darkness.” Conradiana 42.1/2 (Spring-Summer 2010): 93-106. Print. A literary criticism of Joseph Conrad's novel "Heart of Darkness" is presented. It shows Charlie Marlow's misty telling of his veiled story within a slanted narrative, and cites his own comparison of his story with the retelling of a dream. And yet it points at how Conrad's treatment of the unsayable in the novella can be viewed as a form of apophasis. Excerpts from Dionysius the Areopagite's 5th- to 6th-century AD "Mythical Theology" and Samuel Beckett's "The Unnamable" are given. Stampfl, Barry. “Marlow's Rhetoric Of (Self-) Deception In Heart Of Darkness.” Modern Fiction Studies 37.2 (Summer91): 183. Print. Discusses the narrative style of Marlow in Joseph Conrad's story 'Heart of Darkness.' Role of psychoanalytic theory in providing the conceptual framework for a desublimated investigation of Marlow's narrative; polemic against idealism in the name of exegesis; Conrad's stylistic devices; Conrad's extension of Sigmund Freud's analysis of the rhetoric of self-deception; words of negation and anticonjectural words of uncertainty that enable the expression of the repressed ideational content.

Stubbs, Michael. “Conrad in the computer: examples of quantitative stylistic methods.” Language & Literature 14.1 (February 2005): 5-24. Print. A stylistic analysis of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is used to illustrate the literary value of simple quantitative text and corpus data. Cultural and literary aspects of the book are briefly discussed. It is then shown that data on the frequencies and distributions of individual words and recurrent phraseology can not only provide a more detailed descriptive basis for widely accepted literary interpretations of the book, but also identify significant linguistic features which literary critics seem not to have noticed. The argument provides a response to skepticism of quantitative stylistics from both linguists and literary critics. Taylor, Derek. “Conrad's Heart of Darkness.” Explicator 56.4 (Summer 1998): 195. Print. Unwilling to espouse the violence inherent in adventure or to fully relinquish his need to pass as an adventurer, Marlow attempts an unholy amalgamation of the two positions. In so doing, he renders himself impotent in both. Indeed, what at first appears to bother Marlow in the passage--the mistreatment of natives--is not, as he concludes, the source of his unrest after all; rather, it is the type of men mistreating the natives that Marlow objects to. Viola, André. “A Black Athena in the Heart of Darkness, or Conrad's Baffling Oxymorons.” Conradiana 38.2 (Summer 2006): 163-173. Print. This article examines the representation of an African woman who appears toward the end of the novella "Heart of Darkness," by Joseph Conrad. Most critics consider her exclusively as the embodiment of the savagery inherent in Africa. After having labeled the woman as mistress, most commentators then proceed to pile on her derogatory qualifiers. What is foregrounded is a sharp and paradoxical contrast in the adjectives attributed to the African woman.

West, Roger. “Conrad's Heart Of Darkness.” Explicator 50.4 (Summer 1992): 222. Print. Discusses Joseph Conrad's novel `Heart of Darkness.' Assertion that Conrad's talismanic white collars serve as a reminder not only of the abusive power that the white man has used against the Africans through the exploitation of those people's superstitions and fears, but also of the political and economic domination of underdeveloped countries that pervades European history; Literary evidence which supports this contention.