Heart of Darkness

First of all, get this straight: Heart of Darkness is one of those classics that you have to have read if you want to consider yourself a well-educated adult.     Having watched Apocalypse Now doesn’t count — if anything, it ups the ante, since that means you have to think about the similari......more

Joseph Conrad seems to have known every nook and cranny of human soul… And this priceless knowledge made him one of the greatest innovators… And Heart of Darkness is simultaneously a polestar and milestone in the world literature. But as I stood on this hillside, I foresaw that in the blinding sunshi......more

Blessed was Odysseus, who returned, full of wisdom, after many conquests and adventures to live a peaceful old age with his wife and family. It didn’t go that well for Charles Marlow. Heart of Darkness is like The Odyssey or The Divine Comedy or the story of Sindbad or any hero’s journey for that ma......more

Is Joseph Conrad a racist? Well, that is a question, a question that is extremely difficult to answer. There are certainly racist aspects within Heart of Darkness. However, how far this is Conrad’s own personal opinion is near impossible to tell. Certainly, Marlowe, the protagonist and narrator, h......more

Blast you, F. Scott Fitzgerald! After reading this book twice, I now have to read this book a third time for "after-effects" on the reader's mind! Earlier this year, I was reading The Great Gatsby: A Literary Reference. In that book, there were two articles that discussed Conrad’s influence on F. Sco......more