White vs. Black/ Light vs. Dark

In Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad we can find a lot of imagery, especially when Conrad juxtaposes black and white in a constant basis. It’s as though there is a constant battle between that white and black things. The comparison with European and African, modern and rudimentary, good and bad is almost too obvious.

On everything that Conrad writes we can find this comparison, like when he speaks of Kurtz, “I saw on that ivory face the expression of sombre pride” (Conrad 130). You can say that the “ivory face” is good, in a manner of speaking, but the “sombre expression” makes it bad. Or at least this is the constant battle played in the novel between black and white.

We see this once again in Heart of Darkness when the jungle is portrayed as “dark” and all that created by man is “light”. “There was a lamp in there­­­ – light, don’t you know – and outside it was so beastly, beastly dark” (Conrad 131) In the boat there was light, for it represented all the western world, civilization as it is, and outside was all the unknown, the rudimentary and dangerous world of the Congo.

Conrad relates this idea of Light vs. Dark during the novel in a constant way. Pointing out that everything had a “light” side and also a counterpart “dark” side.