Symbolism in Conrad

One particularly critical symbol to understand if an individual is to understand the psychology behind Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is the symbolism of the Europeans juxtaposed with the savage cannibals. The narrator Marlow is very surprised by the reversal of European and African roles and his initial illusion of European social and moral supremacy is ultimately shattered. Europeans like Kurtz and the manager seem to show little restraint and adherence to a moral code and seem to metaphorically cannibalize the land for natural resources while providing minimal compensation for those force to work with them. While starved to death by their minuscule pay and supposedly corrupted by their savage nature in the Heart of Darkness, the native cannibals show restraint in not eating each other or their European companions to support a human necessity. This European lack of the restraint for trivial goods juxtaposed against the African upholding of moral dignity dispels Marlow’s reality providing a dreamlike reality.

Heart of Darkness Blog #2

In Heart of Darkness, Marlow begins to tell his story by first describing the relationship between the colonization of a different civilization. In describing the colonization of England by the Roman empire, Conrad does a good job setting up the premise for the rest of the story and thus Marlow's journey to the Congo. Initially viewed as a savage land, England was colonized and transformed for a place of brutish ambition into a land of wealth and human triumph. Yet, Marlow notes that England was not settled peacefully and it was only through senseless violence that England was transformed. Conrad perhaps includes this as an analogy to events that will take place further throughout the story in the Congo. Perhaps the colonization of the Congo was a much more violent and nonsensical experience then Marlow would have hoped.