Annotated Bibliography
Brooks, Jennifer. “The Repression of Dream Work.” (2014): 1-10. Presidents Writing Awards. Web.
Jennifer Brooks associates Heart of Darkness with dreams and dream-like imagery through Marlow, Kurtz, and the Congo. The underlying truths for Marlow are repressed by him as his realization of Kurtz’ “Horror” is he is part of it himself. Brooks’ article is filled with associations of Sigmund Freud to the Conrad’s novella in which Marlow’s abstract narrative portrays dream-thoughts as it does in Interpretation of Dreams. Marlow is unable to grasp what he see’s in Africa and describes it in hazy-like imagery to the reader. Though, there is meaning to this dream-like presentation in that it is the truth of the Congo. Brooks backs
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Levenson explains the journey of Marlow wasn’t one through physical space, but a journey into the unconscious part of the mind or world. As the crew journeys into the Congo, they look for a center of the “darkness,” but in reality, it is only hollow in the kernel. This ideology shapes the “horror” new critics propose as not discovering this core, Kurtz, or the meaning of the novel, but there is simply not one meaning of the novel.
Levenson describes an “edge,” that they are all trying to get to, and as the Russian in the novella did--he went too far and didn’t know how he’ll ever get out of this border. Marlow goes to Africa from Europe and looks at the natives as the white man, the imperialist would, and as the European mind tries to discover its origins, he travels closer to the edge. The author describes Marlow’s growth towards the edge as stretching the mind out to the psychic interpretation of life and Marlow learns that there is no novelty within the interpretation. Wrongly stated by most critics, Levenson puts on the psychoanalytic lense to critic Heart of Darkness to the experience on the psychic side, not a journey to a definite