I began reading Joseph Conrad’s book, Heart of Darkness, today. I wasn’t expecting much since I hadn’t heard anything from this book, but by the cover I began making some ideas about it, a boat in a jungle. You can make out many things out of this picture, but what came into my mind was an adventure through the jungle, and the book started a little differently.
It all starts in London, the river Thames, were our narrator is in a boat with four more characters, and among them is Marlow. He will be the one who is going to start speaking about his adventures on a steamboat in the Congo. Joseph Conrad captures our attention easily when he juxtaposes Marlow’s experience with that of a Roman who just arrived to England when it was conquered by the Romans. He speaks of a dark place, and Conrad catches us even more when he writes, “yet to understand the effect of it on me you ought to know how I got out there” (pg 9). Marlow experienced something in the Congo that changed him, something very dark in many different ways.
Because this was my first reading of the novel I might say it did capture me. It has some mystery in it and I look forward to answering all the questions I have right now about Conrad’s book.
You're really behind in your reading.
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