The Heart of Darkness
• Conrad’s aim: to write about the criminality, inefficiency and
selfishness of the civilizing mission in Africa
• Novella vs novel and short story
• 3 installments: beginning February 1899
• Book format: 1902
• Interpretations
•  Freudian psychoanalysis
•  Symbolic, new critical reading
•  existentianlist reading
•  postcolonial, ideologically committed
• Autobiographical element: Conrad visited Africa between JuneDecember 1890.
1. Setting: why does the story begin in London? What is the
function of the frame of the narrative?
2. What motivates Marlow? How does he imagine the Congo?
3. What are the similarities and differences between Marlow
and Kurtz? Why is Kurtz unable to come back to „the civilized
world”?
4. The function of symbols: the river, the fog, darkness, women
knitting black wool
5. Interpret Kurtz’s last words: „the horror, the horror”! Why is
Marlow unable to tell his fiance that these were his last words?