Robert Kimbrough Boeken

Heart of Darkness is classified by the Modern Library website editors as one of the “100 best novels” and part of the Western canon. In this Reader you will find: Information about Joseph Conrad’s life | An introduction focusing on background and context | Focus pages on colonialism, critical readings and themes and symbols | Notes on the text | Activities to help with technical vocabulary | Post- and pre-reading activities Tags Classic Marlow, a man who has spent his life at sea, tells the story of a journey up the River Congo which changed his life. His journey upriver to find Kurtz, the charismatic head of a colonial trading station, takes him into the very heart of Africa and leads Marlow to question both Kurtz’s dubious methods and his own very nature. Conrad’s dark and powerfully evocative tale is a compelling study of inner conflict and a devastating critique of European imperialism.

"The three stories in this volume lay no claim to unity of artistic purpose. The only bond between them is that of the time in which they were written." Thus Conrad, in his Author's Note of 1917, qualifies his later statement that the stories represent the three ages of man--youth, maturity and age. Together on one volume we see that he did not set out to write about three separate periods of life, but rather that he wrote about life from three separate points of view.