Heart Of Darkness

Light is traditionally interpreted with goodness and innocence, while darkness correlates with evil and corruption. In the book of Genesis, God created light and saw how the light was good. So He separated light and dark. However, in Heart of Darkness, light is not associated with goodness, but symbolizes the deceptiveness of the Europeans entering Africa. The darkness is associated with the ignorance of the natives. Conrad uses the contrasting symbols of light and dark to convey the theme of imperialism. Conrad uses light to represent the colonization of Africa by the Europeans. He begins by describing that London “has been one of the dark places on the earth” (Conrad 6). Before, London was just an empty piece of land with the Thames River
To Conrad, Africa and the Africans represent the darkness, which means that Africa is not civilized. Marlow goes through “a white fog … more blinding than the night” (Conrad 48). Conrad uses the fog’s darkness to represent the failure to see. The failure to see also symbolizes the failure to understand an individual and failing to have any sympathy towards that individual. The blinding darkness that the fog creates explains why the natives are seen as “savages” that need to be tamed and not actual human beings. Conrad describes the natives as “black shadows of disease and starvation” (Conrad 20). He illustrates the natives as helpless and pitiful under the European’s light. The white imperialists end up not following their intention to help the Africans and leave them to die slowly. Without light, the darkness of the Europeans shines brightly to reveal their true intentions of civilizing the
The natives did not know what to expect when the Europeans first entered their land. They were obviously confused, but in reality, the natives are fascinated with the imperialists. When the natives gather around Kurtz, they “do not talk with him—they listen to him” (Conrad 65). Kurtz uses his stories to make it seem like he is the most important thing in their mind hiding the natives from the harsh reality. Because the natives are impressed with Kurtz, they follow his request to kill anyone just so he can get ivory. Kurtz is able to educate his group of natives to conform them to his white imperialist rules. The imperialists also teach some natives to be in charge of the “criminals, and the outraged law” (Conrad 18) natives. But because one of the guard native’s mask is off and he sees the imperialists’ true dark hearts, he is scared every time he sees a white man. He is in fear that if he did not do his job correctly, he is also going to be chained with the rest of the criminals. Unfortunately, there are a few natives that are keeping their masks on from the blinding Europeans. Those natives are described as “products of the new forces at work” (Conrad 19). The natives are being exposed to corruption that they are enslaving their own kin, but because the natives are easily deceivable,