Joseph Conrad

Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad

The Heart of Darkness is a long story or short novel from 1899. It was written at a time when European imperialism, and especially British, was beginning to lose its aura of humanizing mission and some of the excesses and brutalities were beginning to be known. committed by Europeans on the African continent, which addresses issues such as colonialism, the clash of cultures, racism and human violence. The novel focuses on a sailor named Charlie Marlow, who narrates a journey he made years ago along a tropical river, in search of a certain Kurtz, the head of an ivory farm that throughout the novel acquires a symbolic character. and ambiguous. The Heart of Darkness is a coded novel about the European colonization of Africa. Conrad recreated his journey down the Congo River, changing names and geographic details, but without hiding his rejection of certain activities in the Congo Free State. Beyond the storyline that develops the story, Conrad's work has survived the passage of time as a foretaste of modern narrative. The narrative style is not merely descriptive, but takes the reader into a descent into the unconscious. That is why this work also constitutes a reflection on the art of narrating an intense story in a few pages.