Quotes From Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Quotes From Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad The  Heart of Darkness,  a novel  published in 1899, is a famous work by Joseph Conrad. The authors experiences in Africa provided him with plenty of material for this work, a  tale of a man who gives into the enticements of power. Here are a few quotes from Heart of Darkness. The River The Congo River serves as a major setting for the books narrative. The novels narrator, Marlow, spends months navigating up the river in search of Kurtz, an ivory trader, who has gone missing deep in the heart of Africa. The river is also a metaphor for Marlows internal, emotional journey to find the elusive Kurtz. The old river in its broad reach rested unruffled at the decline of day, after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its banks, spread out in the tranquil dignity of a waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth.Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, they all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire. What greatness had not floated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth!In and out of rivers, streams of death in life, whose banks were rotting into mud, whose waters, thickened with slime, invaded the contorted mangroves, that seemed to writhe at us in the extremity of an impotent despair. Dreams and Nightmares The story actually takes place in London,  where Marlow tells his tale to a group of friends while they are on a boat anchored on the River Thames. He describes his adventures in Africa alternately as a dream and a nightmare, trying to get his listeners to mentally conjure the images that he witnessed during his journey. Nowhere did we stop long enough to get a particularlised impression, but the general sense of vague and oppressive wonder grew upon me.  It was like a weary pilgrimage amongst hints for nightmares.The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealth, the germs of empires.Do you see him? Do you see the story? Do you see anything? It seems I am trying to tell you a dream   making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is the very essence of dreams. Darkness Darkness is a key part of the novel, as the title implies. Africa at that time was considered a dark continent. Once Marlow finds Kurtz, he sees him as a man infected with a heart of darkness. Images of dark, scary places are scattered throughout the novel. And this also  ... has been one of the dark places of the earth.Often far away there I thought of these two, guarding the door of Darkness, knitting black wool as for a warm pall, one introducing, introducing continuously to the unknown, the other scrutinizing the cheery and foolish faces with unconcerned old eyes.We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness. Savagery and Colonialism The novel takes place at the height of the age of colonialism and Britain was the worlds mightiest colonial power. Britain and the other European powers were considered to be civilized, while much of the rest of the world was considered to populated by savages. Those images permeate the book. In some inland post feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round him ...  .When one has got to make correct entries, one comes to hate those savages   hate them to the death.The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.