The darkness of the story can be seen with the uncivilised natives of the area the savages who were black. This is how the Europeans saw them as black savages. The light can be seen as the civilised the Europeans, who have come to teach, and impose there values. The natives would see this the other way around they do not like the Europeans and feel they have come to cause trouble for them.
There is however a few times when the symbolism of the light is good dark is evil is reversed. The ivory is a white light object light but causes so much evil. “Kurtz got the tribe to follow him” is an example of him turning evil to get at the ivory. His desperate need for it sent him mad. This reversal in roles for the image creates a ….
Symbolism
The most important symbolic item in the novel is the wilderness, the area around Marlow as he makes his great journey. Marlow describes to the others on board of the ship that the state of what they are going to have to face is probably what the Romans had when they first visited. The area either side of the river is also a threat to them “We cleared the snag clumsily. Arrows, by Jove! We were being shot at!” They became targets from the dark camouflaged bushes by the river. The river carries a lot of hidden dark and danger for Marlow and the boat; this also includes the dangers in the river itself such as sand banks and low depths. The river is also very symbolic going down the river is “like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world.” Marlow’s journey is going to be going back in time to the uncivilized world they are not quite sure what they are going to meet while traveling there or when they reach there destination. "The brown current ran swiftly out of darkness, bearing us down towards the sea with twice the speed of our upward progress; …and Kurtz's life was running swiftly, too, ebbing out of his heart into the sea of inexorable time.” The fact that they saw the river running from the darkness symbolizes that again they are heading in to some evil. Conrad uses the imagery of darkness is evil to help create a more suspicious a more tense atmosphere. The river is described as an “Immense snake uncoiled with its head in the sea…P22” by Marlow. Conrad uses the snake as a metaphor for the river. He says, “It was the stillness of the implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention” This is saying that the river is beyond under standing in a world of it own. Conrad uses a lot of I words in this sentence, it creates an intense and anxious atmosphere also to emphasise the fact that Marlow was entering a place, which was to the majority unknown. For the crew aboard the ship of who Marlow is talking too. The word inscrutable means unreachable suggesting that the river was dangerous. Conrad gives the river another snake like characteristic by the unreachable, meaning that the snake was dangerous to get close to. It was this evil snake that interested Marlow from the moment he saw it. He was attracted to it. This is an example of the early evil symbols that showed us what was going to happen to Marlow on his journey.
A snake is associated with fear and cold blooded and a feeling of evil Hence giving the river an association with evil. Meaning that Marlow was going to have to travel up a river, which has evil snake like characteristics, this means that the basis of Marlow’s journey has an evil base to it. When Marlow talking about the river on page 60 he uses repeated words and Hyphens to create a worried atmosphere “the reality – the reality” Marlow is questioning the safeness of the river, he has to be wary of all the ‘increasingly evil things the water could carry to damage the boat. Marlow talks in a voice as if he were speaking to some one else not narrating the story. The further he moves down the river he is moving closer to Kurtz station but also moving further into the darkness of the earliest times. The darker it get’s the further into the river the more evil it is getting and at the center the most evil you can get Kurtz’s property aligned with all of his heads. The ultimate of the evil in the novel
Ivory: -
The ivory symbolises the greed of the Europeans. The light is good metaphor is reversed here meaning that the light and supposedly good Europeans are turned over and turn them themselves in to nothing but evil savages just like the natives. Kurtz with all of his heads on sticks is a good example of how they abuse their power.
Kurtz's painting –
The symbol of the painting at the inner station is of a blindfolded woman with her face distorted carrying a lighted torch. The women possibly symbolises the view of the Europeans from the natives point of view this is the reason her face has become distorted because the natives hate the Europeans very much. The lighted torch could easily represent the values that the light Europeans are trying to force onto the natives. The reason she is blind folded is possibly because of the ways that the Europeans don’t see what they are doing to the natives and how they don’t like it. This is situated in one of the middle stations possibly showing that the ignorance of the Europeans is the middle or heart of most of the problem with the savages.
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