Darkness and evil can happen to anyone in anyway, it happened to Marlow and Kurtz mentally, and then it affects what you physically. The meaning darkness does not mean the same for everyone, it is different in our minds to what others think, we all have different opinions of what we think something is. For example, if you look up the word ‘darkness’ or ‘dark’ in a dictionary you may find more than one meaning. First meaning it gave – dark, no light, dull cutoff from the rest of the world, gloomy, sad, sinister, evil secret, night, not knowing. These are all words that could have been used in the book. The jungle could be sinister and evil. I find that the word secret represents what goes on in the jungle very well. It makes you think carefully about what might be in the jungle, the dangers and cautions of the jungle. It also seems very mystical. It shows that maybe the jungle has something to hide that it doesn’t want you to know about, it wants to keep it to itself.
In the book, as Marlow travels up the Congo River, he himself begins to become sinister and evil, he isn’t his usual self. “Ship me somewhere south of Europe, where the best can be the worst, where there aren’t no ten commandments, and a man can raise a thirst”. This is a piece of poem, by Rudyard Kimpling. This I relate to Marlow. He has been taken to Africa in Southern Europe, and where there aren’t any rules or laws. Anything could happen, and the evil comes out of his heart. This statement says that if you go somewhere that doesn’t have any rules or laws, then people will do as they please, if there aren’t any rules or laws then nothing can be broken.
The white people have gone out to Africa to trade ivory, but also to ‘save’ the blacks. Instead of saving them, the description from the books, makes it sound like they are torturing them. “ You could see them from afar, then white of their eyeballs glistening. They shouted, sang, their bodies streamed with perspiration, they had faces like grotesque masks – these chaps, but they had bone, muscle, wild vitality, an intense energy of movement, that was as natural and true as the surf along their coast.” This shows that they have been treated badly and aren’t cared for at all.
Conrad is trying to teach us, about the civilization and life of other countries and people. The way in which, they prefer to do things. The way the eat, dress, teach, learn, hunt, capture. All the things that we do in everyday life, they do differently. God made us, in a particular way to suit our country, and other people can’t just go into a country and change that.
The darkness does change it’s meaning throughout the book. At the beginning, Conrad talks about the darkness, and gloominess of London, while Marlow is on the Thames in his boat. It eventually changes to the darkness of somebody else, it becomes the darkness and evil of someone coming out into the big wide world.
I feel that the darkness in the book, means the darkness in somebody’s heart, and you can’t change that.
