The Heart of Darkness, a novella written by Joseph Conrad, is a complex story providing many different interpretations to different people. Some people say that it is about Good vs Evil; the evils of colonization; the idea that we are protected by society from our own savagery, and so on. There are many themes to the novel, but the one I'd like to focus on may not have been completely intentional by the author. Joseph Conrad was born in the Polish Ukraine and lived in various parts of Poland and Europe until he was seventeen and chose to go to sea. As a child he had looked at a map of the world, a map unlike our modern day maps; this map had many blank spaces on it showing unexplored regions of the globe. One of these blank spaces in particular fascinated him; the area known as the Congo in Africa. In 1889 Conrad's dream was fulfilled and he journeyed into the Congo, into the heart of that fascinating blank space. The trip, in short, was an utter disappointment to Conrad. A series of mishaps, miscommunications, accidents, failing health and the overall experience of the Congo seriously disillusioned Conrad.
The basic story of Heart of Darkness came from the journals and notes he wrote during the long hours of his trip in the Congo when there was little else to do. When this fact is taken into consideration while reading the Heart of Darkness you can see the many parallels between Conrad's experiences and Marlow's. If that idea is taken one step further, I believe the reader can safely surmise the Marlow's disillusionment is a thinly veiled disguise for Conrad's own. The section of the text that I am using for this cyber-project is the text where Marlow receives his appointment for the trip and the text where Marlow first reaches the Outer Station and gets his first look at the Congo and its inhabitants. These two sections of text best illustrate, I believe, the connection between Conrad and Marlow's experience and disillusionment in the Congo. The first section shows his enthusiasm and expectations, while the second shows the reality of the Congo and the beginnings of the disillusionment process.
Section of text from Heart of Darkness