The Controversial Themes In Joseph Conrad's Heart Of Darkness

Heart of Darkness is a Novella with an "enigmatic story" that approaches various controversial themes. The style in which it is written - prose - and the way it approaches modernism with a shift in realism resulted in an immense influence on twentieth century literature. This writing style permitted the fluid development of the story, touching controversial aspects such as heroification and power, without even mentioning them. The significance of the story allows the reader to identify and interpret said themes, but also able to make counterarguments and opinions throughout the narration. Conrad, the author, gives the main character, Marlow, the role of outsider of a Company in which he starts discovering different traditions and beliefs

Kurtz, on the other hand, plays the role of insider, being one of the heads of the Company and supervising the personnel; but, there were things that didn 't quite match for Marlow with respect the position of Mr. Kurtz. The novella reveals to readers the positions that hero 's followers take. By analyzing these two characters, Conrad demonstrated aspects of heroification and the way people tend to feel inferior in front of heroes, role models, or people with higher positions, without being completely positive images or that are just hypothetical and unreal figures. In the words of Charles V. Willie, "By idolizing those whom we honor, we do a disservice both to them and to ourselves… We fail to recognize that we could go and do likewise." It is of great importance for readers to empathize with Heart of Darkness in this particular manner - heroification - to understand the meaning of life, in which each individual has their role, and no one is better than no one. Everyone contributes to the final result, the

Kurtz, and it wasn 't till then that Kurtz will only have been seen as a special character and with a perfect power domination. "Hadn 't I been told in all the tones of jealousy and admiration that he had collected, bartered, swindled, or stolen more ivory than all the other agents together? That was not the point. The point was in his being a gifted creature, and that of all his gifts the one that stood out pre-eminently, that carried with it a sense of real presence, was his ability to talk, his words - the gift of expression, the bewildering, the illuminating, the most exalted and the most contemptible, the pulsating stream of light, or the deceitful flow from the heart of an impenetrable darkness" (Conrad, 43). People, most of the times, only know one side of the story - the good side - and may tend to cover false ideas of someone because of their wrong beliefs. When telling a story, in the news, or even when expressing ideas, the narrator will always want to focus on the positive side to impress the audience and catch their attention. As a demonstration of these, in action movies the main character is a hero and is illustrated with super powers and exaggerations to make illusions or fictional ideas to the audience and maintain their attention. Like explicitly said in Lies My Teacher Told Me, "By giving the credit to the hero, authors tell less than half of the story". Usually the positive version is the published