Joseph Conrad "Heart of Darkness"

 

Joseph Conrad

Marlow, a merchant sailor, travels through colonial Africa. He makes a perilous journey by steamboat to rescue Kurtz, an agent, who is seriously ill. He arrives at Kurtz's station to find that the agent has taken control of the whole area. In his complete isolation from civilised society Kurtz has instituted a brutal system of human sacrifice and magic to enthral the natives.

Heart of Darkness is a novella by Joseph Conrad in 1899. Central to Conrad's work is the idea that there is little difference between so-called civilized people and those described as savages. Heart of Darkness raises important questions about imperialism and racism. Originally published as a three-part serial story in Blackwood's Magazine, the novella Heart of Darkness has been variously published and translated into many languages. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Heart of Darkness as the sixty-seventh of the hundred best novels in English of the twentieth century.

Perhaps the most famous interpretation of Heart of Darkness came in 1979 with the film Apocalypse Now, written by John Milius and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. In the film, the setting is now the Nung River, the jungle is in Cambodia and the context is that of the Vietnam War. The film stars Marlon Brando as Colonel Kurtz. Other members of the cast include Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall and Dennis Hopper.

 

 

  

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