Paper Details

Name: Rajinder Kaur Saggu
Country: India

Year: 2016
Volume: Volume-3, Issue-1 (January-June)
Page Number: 40-44

Darkness is a major theme in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. It is the central motif and serves as a pivot around which the whole novel revolves. Darkness is the central image and all the other images in the novel contribute to the development of it. In the larger frame-work of the novel, Darkness is an image and a symbol as well as the total effect. Darkness at multiple levels such as physical, political, moral and psychological, has been dealt with in the novel. The images, when studied along with these various levels of darkness, help us understand the meaning and implications of darkness.
The novel is in the form of a journey that Marlow undertakes to the dark centre of Africa, the heart of darkness. In the beginning, we have five men cruising on Thames river. It is the time of dusk and gets darker and darker as the story progresses and time lapses.