İNGİLİZ/AMERİKAN EDEBİYATI II - Deneme Sınavı - 4

Madam Bovary was written by Gustave Flaubert.  It is clear that in many of
Conrad's works like The Rescue, An Outpost of Progress, Heart of Darkness or In the Nigger of the Narcissus he wanted to give a clear difference between uncivilized and civilized minds.

Conrad in the name of Kurtz criticizes the civilization of Europe. Kurtz becomes an ironic commentary on civilization an civilized man.

The images used most in the novel are light and darkness. Conrad, as in his many of novels, in Heart of Darkness draws attention to the conflict between the qualitative aspect of objects and the interpretation of what is seen in these recognizable objects. The world can be perceived as colors or sounds.

The story in Heart of Darkness is mainly about Marlow and his unusual experience.

White man is a symbol of developed societies and black man symbolizes the third world countries.

He was a transitional writer between realism and modernism, his subject matters were the social, economic and the political problems of the period. Opposing to the ideas of the society, sometimes as satirist and sometimes as an indirect critique he criticized the way of living and manner of thinking in people of his own time.

The Pilgrims are European agents at the Central Station. They are named as pilgrims because the way they carry wooden staves with them everywhere they go.

Marlow learns about Kurtz madness from the Russian trader.

The manager is the chief of the Central Station. He is responsible for the Company’s activities in the Congo. The manager is a kind of man who is not concerned about anything but himself and his own success. He is selfish.

Cannibals are a group of natives and they are hired as crew for Marlow’s voyage. Marlow admires them because they are able to control their cannibalistic natures when they are on the ship.

The story mainly takes place in Belgian Congo which is one of the most known European colonies in Africa.

The themes in the novel are racism, colonialism and darkness. Religion and faith is not one of the themes.

There are two main geographical settings in the novel; The Congo River in Africa in 1890, and aboard the Nellie on the Thames River in 1891.

The main story is vocalized through Marlow’s point of view.

Marlow in his childhood was fascinated by maps and he wanted to become a seaman or an explorer and to travel to the uncharted areas in the earth.

The tone of the novel is cynical, mocking, pessimistic, stark, and sometimes sarcastic. Heart of Darkness has a pessimistic view on life.

Ivory is a great symbol for white men’s greed and their destructive manners towards nature.

In the story white symbolizes blindness. If the fog is considered as a white form then nothing is seen through it. The dark generally represents the Dark continent Africa and the primitive heart of men.

The women at the headquarters knitting black wool can be taken as a symbol for fate and death.

The Brickmaker is a symbol for the disorganization of the Company.