Concetti Chiave
- The Congo River serves as the backdrop for Heart of Darkness, highlighting Belgium's colonial presence with trading stations and the supposed mission to civilize natives.
- Marlow, the narrator, recounts his journey into Africa on the Thames, where he becomes a steamboat captain in the Belgian Congo, tasked with retrieving ivory.
- Kurtz, a company agent, becomes a central figure in Marlow's tale, known for his descent into madness and deification in the Congo's heart.
- The novel critiques the hypocrisy of imperialism, showcasing how civilization's facade masks brutal exploitation and dehumanization.
- Conrad employs symbols like darkness, fog, and the river to explore themes of moral ambiguity and the psychological impact of colonialism.
Heart of darkness
The Congo river is the setting for Heart of Darkness. In 1877 Belgium set up the first trading station at Kinshasa, and in 1882 the “association international du Congo” was founded. Its aim was to civilize the natives, to abolish slavery, and give them liberty of religion and trade.
Plot
Marlow, the narrator, is on the Thames, on board the Nellie, a cruising yawl. During the night he tells four friends of his adventure in the heart of Africa, in the latter part of the 19th century. He obtained a job as captain of a steamboat which would transport raw ivory from the heart of the Belgian Congo. There for the first time he heard the name of Kurtz, a company agent presented as a man of culture, who had been sent some years before to an inner station in the heart of the Congo, to get ivory for the company. Him there has been no news. It then prepares to go up the Congo to bring supplies to the internal stations and for news of Kurtz. After two months at sea, which are envisaged as a real descent into hell, Marlowe arrives in the village of Kurtz. Meet a sick man, made almost mad by years of solitude, a bloody head, feared and revered as a deity and surrounded by a scene of death. Kurtz dies on the boat shouting the horror of the experience.
The main themes of heart of darkness are:
- The hypocrisy of the aims of “a civilization” which hides only a need to justify crude imperialism. Kurtz is only the extreme expression of a general dehumanization caused by colonial exploitation.
- The condemnation of excessive power, which leads to self-aggrandisement, particularly when a man becomes the only arbiter of his actions.
- Ambiguity: Marlow see Kurtz and his actions but does not really judge him.
Kurtz is the mad product of a mad world. In this moral confusion Marlow enters into his inner self; how would he have behaved under the same conditions, in this dark country where physical and moral disintegration are the general destiny, both of exploiters and the exploited? Conrad uses many symbols in his work: darkness, both in the country and in the heart of man; fog, which distorts and obscures places and man’s capacity to see clearly; the Congo river gloomy and impervious, similar to the contorted mind of human beings.
Domande da interrogazione
- Qual è l'ambientazione principale di "Heart of Darkness"?
- Chi è Kurtz e quale ruolo svolge nella storia?
- Quali sono i temi principali di "Heart of Darkness"?
- Quali simboli utilizza Conrad nel suo lavoro?
L'ambientazione principale è il fiume Congo, dove si svolge l'avventura narrata da Marlow.
Kurtz è un agente della compagnia, descritto come un uomo di cultura, inviato nel cuore del Congo per ottenere avorio. È una figura centrale che rappresenta la deumanizzazione causata dallo sfruttamento coloniale.
I temi principali includono l'ipocrisia della civilizzazione, la condanna del potere eccessivo, e l'ambiguità morale, rappresentata dalla figura di Kurtz e dalle azioni di Marlow.
Conrad utilizza simboli come l'oscurità, la nebbia e il fiume Congo per rappresentare la confusione morale e la mente contorta degli esseri umani.
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