Similarity in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim
Similarity in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim
Many times, after a successful novel, an author will publish another story very similar to the praised one. Joseph Conrad followed in suit with the previous statement. After the publication of Heart of Darkness in 1899, Lord Jim was released in 1900. However, according to majority of his critics, Conrad’s Lord Jim arguably outdoes Heart of Darkness to be named his best work. Few realize, though, that Lord Jim was actually started before Heart of Darkness and dropped until after the completion of it (Galens, Novels for Students 193). Joseph Conrad uses a consistent style throughout the writing of Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim to display similar central points. The uniform parts of style include setting, narration, and central characters. Compliments of the style similarities, the role of women, the gathered theme of white heroism among the natives, and the issues of loss and rejection confirm the likeness of the two novels.
As Conrad spent over twenty years on the sea, it is no surprise that both of these novels take place among the waters. More specifically, Heart of Darkness begins along the Thames River in London. The travels include a round trip from the Thames to the Congo, ending again in Europe (Telgen 98). Conrad uses legitimate and real places to portray the African area in the 1890s. But, in Lord Jim, the ship called the Patna and the island of Patusan are both fictional. He creates the ship and island with the same jungle like descriptions to serve as the main setting of Lord Jim.
Perhaps Conrad did not feel that he portrayed what he truly wanted to show in Heart of Darkness because he had to stick with some historical truths about Africa. He then creates his own places with his own rules and writes Lord Jim. If this is true, the use of the same narrator named Marlow in both novels is logical.
In both novels, the structure of the narrator is virtually set up the same; they are
Many times, after a successful novel, an author will publish another story very similar to the praised one. Joseph Conrad followed in suit with the previous statement. After the publication of Heart of Darkness in 1899, Lord Jim was released in 1900. However, according to majority of his critics, Conrad’s Lord Jim arguably outdoes Heart of Darkness to be named his best work. Few realize, though, that Lord Jim was actually started before Heart of Darkness and dropped until after the completion of it (Galens, Novels for Students 193). Joseph Conrad uses a consistent style throughout the writing of Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim to display similar central points. The uniform parts of style include setting, narration, and central characters. Compliments of the style similarities, the role of women, the gathered theme of white heroism among the natives, and the issues of loss and rejection confirm the likeness of the two novels.
As Conrad spent over twenty years on the sea, it is no surprise that both of these novels take place among the waters. More specifically, Heart of Darkness begins along the Thames River in London. The travels include a round trip from the Thames to the Congo, ending again in Europe (Telgen 98). Conrad uses legitimate and real places to portray the African area in the 1890s. But, in Lord Jim, the ship called the Patna and the island of Patusan are both fictional. He creates the ship and island with the same jungle like descriptions to serve as the main setting of Lord Jim.
Perhaps Conrad did not feel that he portrayed what he truly wanted to show in Heart of Darkness because he had to stick with some historical truths about Africa. He then creates his own places with his own rules and writes Lord Jim. If this is true, the use of the same narrator named Marlow in both novels is logical.
In both novels, the structure of the narrator is virtually set up the same; they are
Cited: Achebe, Chinua. “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.” The Massachusetts Review 1977: 251-262 Galens, David, ed. Literary Movement for Students. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale Group, 2002. 48-75. Galens, David, ed. Novels for Students. Vol. 16. Detroit: Gale Group, 2002. 179- 201. Merriman, C. D. "Joseph Conrad Biography." The Literature Network. Jalic Inc., 2007. Web. 2 May 2010. . Moss, Joyce, and George Wilson. Literature and Its Times. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale Group, 1997. 145-151. Poupard, Dennis, and James E. Person, Jr., eds. Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Vol. 13. Detroit: Gale Group, 1984. 98-14. Telgen, Diane, ed. Novels for Students. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale Group, 1997. 87- 102.