Joseph Conrad’s novella, Heart of Darkness, carries a central theme regarding evil and all its
characteristics. In this excerpt, the author illustrates River Thames and the crew lead by the Director of
Companies, bonded at sea with the gloomy water. The dark air, mournful gloom, and haze running
across the shores of Gravesend depicts a rather uncomfortable and mysterious aura on a seemingly
never-ending river. From this reading passage, Conrad establishes the narrator’s relationship to its
anguished setting while gradually venturing further into the Congo, specifically employing vivid imagery
and a mournful mood.
The author adopts lively imagery within the reading passage to establish the narrator’s
relationship to its sorrowful setting. “In the offing the sea and the sky were welded together without a
joint” is a much more expressive statement rather than just writing “smooth,” and is only the first
example of the author’s inclination towards rich imagery when establishing the narrator’s relationship.
Conrad paints a “luminous space” where the “tanned sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed
to stand still in red clusters of canvas sharply peaked” alongside “gleams of varnished spirits.” The
details illustrated within the passage excellently paint the seascape with such accurate detail. Regarding
the narrator’s relationship, the anguished setting adorned by the author adds darkness and depravity
when the narrator continues in the passage. Continued in the first paragraph, the air was “dark” and
“brooding motionless”; the narrator is flat and stagnant, almost as if the fear of the vivid imagery within
the setting is preventing him to continue on within the passage. The author of the reading passage
manifests colorful and dark imagery to create the sense of depravity and savagery when connected with
the narrator’s relationship to the novel.
Along with vivid imagery, the author adds a mournful mood when establishing the setting of the
reading passage about the narrator. When sailing the Thames River “a change came over the waters,
and the serenity became less brilliant but more profound, the old river in its broad reach rested
unruffled at the decline of day.” All the sudden, the mood of the passage shifts as the day unwinds, and
the river unwinds with it. As a result of the “change,” the serenity was darkening, and the evil of the
river was arising. The narrator is beginning to experience discomfort as a result to the river’s darkness
and secrecy, as it would loosen in the last hours of day. When looking at the “venerable stream” in the
“august light,” the narrator and his crew see “abiding memories” of their past and perhaps the past of
those who once sailed in the same river. Seeking comfort, the narrator is trying to offset the evil nature
and mournful mood generated within the reading passage with images of loved ones. The sorrowful,
depressing mood of the setting and Thames River creates disturbance and an unsettling character
regarding the narrator of the passage.
In synergy, the vivid imagery and mournful mood within the passage creates utmost fear in
relation to the narrator. The gloomy, dark, and overall colorful imagery presented by the author creates
an unsettling aura, crediting the sorrowful and unsetting mood encompassed through the entire
passage. The narrator is left in fear and mystery, as what the river is hiding is certainly nothing but evil.