Light vs. Dark in Heart of Darkness Essay -- Heart Darkness Conrad Ess

Light vs. bluish in Heart of Darkness The realism movement of the late ordinal century produced works in literature that were marked by lessen sentimentality and increased objectivity. The goal was to let details tell the story, and off notice equal bias of the author through scientific and detailed descriptions. speckle this form of storytelling undoubtedly is around accurate, it creates difficulties for authors to incorporate their themes into the story. This resulted in an increase in symbolism in realist works. The objects and descriptions within the story are the authors vehicle for displaying the values and themes of the work. Light and darkness are symbols commonly utilise in literature, and have held specific symbolic meanings for hundreds of years. Simply stated, go down commonly symbolizes good, while darkness symbolizes its antithesis - evil. (Cooper) For centuries light vs. dark has been quite possibly the most common symbol in each(prenominal) literature . In Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad maps detail to create a feeling that transc cobblers lasts the literal text - most notably through his delectation of light and dark and the inversion of their traditional meanings. The end goal of this inversion is the establishment of the theme that not everything is as it seems. more than specifically, Conrad uses detailed imagery of light and dark to show often measure white men can be more savage than the natives. The use of darkness in the title of Conrads work immediately alludes to its relevance to the story, but in an unexpected way. While the contrast of light and dark, white and black, and good and evil is a common theme in his novella, Conrad essentially reverses the meanings of the two. Conrads story is about the penetration of a corru... ...Conrad removes Marlows bias, but through the inclusion of careful details he is able to establish his themes. The cruelty of white man to the natives, appearances being deceiving, t he nobility of the Africans all are clear messages of this text that come across not from Marlows opinion, but rather the careful inclusion of details and symbolism. No bigger symbol helps Conrad reinforce his theme than the continuous battle of light and dark, and his use of the two is the cornerstone from which he builds meaning from symbolism. Works CitedConrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. The Longman Anthology of British Literature. Ed. David Damrosch, New York Pearson. Copyright 2004. (pp. 948-1001) Cooper, J.C. An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Traditional Symbols. London Thames and Hudson. Copyright 1987.