lighthod Binary Oppositions in Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness Essay

Binary Oppositions in stock ticker of Darkness In Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad used a series of reversed traditional binary oppositions to occupy the theme that each man has his own heart of darkness that is solely masked by the superficial light of civilization. The novella focused primarily on the adventurer Charlie Marlows journey into the African Congo, but dealt with larger themes. Marlow was from atomic number 63 and understood the basic premises of imperialism, but was unprepared for the world he encountered in the wilderness. The world of the African hobo camp did not abide, at that time, by the same laws with which Marlow had been raised. There was an inherent savagery in the jungle that he had not previously encountered and for which he was unprepared. This is first apparent when Marlow encountered the shaded death grove early on in his journeys. Marlow saw the natives suffering immensely for what seemed to be nothing - their work seemed for naught - but he did not peach up or stop his trek. This is also the first time that the lecturer gets a glimpse of the broader binary oppositions within the text. Marlow glanced at one of the death natives, one with a piece of white European yarn fastened around his neck. In the area that is the Outer Station, the white Europeans had the natives - and vicariously the jungle nature, as the natives became emblems for the land surrounding each station - in a stranglehold. In this case, the color white, usually associated with purity or goodness, became a symbol for the monstrous that was imperialist colonialism. The black of the natives skin, bearing the color often associated with evil and inner darkness, is a stark contrast to the white of the yarn. The fact that Marlow responded with q... ... oppositions, it becomes gain ground that it is only through the pretense of civilization that mankind is able to reject the internal darkness inherent in its nature. However, the intensity of civilized mien is directly related to the physical and moral environment in which human beings are placed, and is therefore unstable. Through Kurtz and Marlow, and their underlying binary oppositions, Joseph Conrad proved that every man has a heart of darkness that is often obscured by the ill-judged illumination of a civilized society. Works Cited and Consulted Adelman, Gary. Heart of Darkness reckon for the Unconscious. Boston Little & Brown, 1987. Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Ed. Robert Kimbrough. 17th ed. New York Norton, 1988. Levenson, Michael. The Value of Facts in the Heart of Darkness. Nineteenth-Century Fiction 40 (1985)351-80.