Heart of Darkness
Joseph Conrad
In Heart of Darkness, Charles Marlow tells the story his work for the Company—traveling up the Congo River where he meets Kurtz, a man resented by his coworkers and revered by the native inhabitants of Africa who has enslaved to harvest ivory. This work has a complicated critical reception, praised for its use of ambiguity and focus on the psychological aspects of its characters, and derided for its racism and xenophobia in depicting the European colonialization of Africa.
Major thematic elements: racism, greed, power dynamics, mortality, imperialism, madness, hypocrisy and indifference
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IB Literature and IB Language and Literature Connections
Place of publication: United Kingdom
Language: English
Era: 20th Century (1899 serial; 1902 novel)
Genre: Fiction
Author: Male
Readers, writers and texts | Time and space | Intertextuality: Connecting texts
Identity | Culture | Creativity | Communication
Perspective | Transformation | Representation
Full text, basic summaries, and overviews
Heart of Darkness | Full text
Full text options for this novel include the eBook produced by Project Gutenberg and this more printable version by Planet eBook.
Heart of Darkness Study Guide | Course Hero
Course Hero has a complete study guide which includes summaries, discussion questions, and more. Course Hero also has a YouTube series with the same information.
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Heart of Darkness Study Guide | Spark Notes
This study guide includes summary and analysis, character lists, quick quizzes, prompts for essays and more.
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The 100 best novels: No 32—Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (1899) | The Guardian | Robert McCrum | April 2014
This short article makes a case for this novel as one of the 100 best in the world. It includes a brief plot summary and notes on the text.
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The Trouble With “Heart of Darkness” | The New Yorker | David Denby | October 1995
This article asks if Heart of Darkness is “a critique of colonialism, or an example of it.”
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Heart of Darkness | Wikipedia
Wikipedia’s page includes composition and publication, summary, critical reception, adaptions and influences, and more.
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About the author
Joseph Conrad | Birtannica.com | Biography
This biography of Conrad includes his background as a Polish-Ukrainian man, his life at sea and in England, his writing career, and influence.
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The Dawn Watch review - ‘redefines how we see Joseph Conrad’ | The Guardian | William Dalrymple | January 2018
This favorable review summarizes and explores Maya Jasanoff’s text The Dawn Watch.
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The Contradictions of Joseph Conrad | The New York Times | Ngugi wa Thiong’O | November 2017
This review of The Dawn Watch is written from a fellow writer’s perspective, and includes a more personal take on both Conrad and The Dawn Watch. It includes discussion of Chinua Achebe’s lecture: “An Image of Africa: Racism in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.”
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At Sea with Joseph Conrad | The New York Times | Maya Jasanoff | April 2015 | Opinion article
Jasanoff writes about the work she did researching Joseph Conrad.
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Joseph Conrad | Wikipedia
This detailed biography of Conrad includes his life, writing style, citizenship, memorials, legacy, and more.
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Articles, essays, and videos about Heart of Darkness
Expansion and Resistance: Crash Course European History #28 | YouTube | Crash Course | 13:13
This video covers more than just Europe’s colonialization of Africa, but is a good way to situate the text in its historical context.
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An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness | Project Muse | The Massachusetts Review | Chinua Achebe
In February 1975, Achebe delivered a a Chancellor’s Lecture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. That lecture was refined and published in Achebe’s 1988 collection Hopes and Impediments. This speech criticizes Heart of Darkness for it’s image of Africa as “‘the other world.’”
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‘A Bloody Racist’: About Achebe’s View of Conrad | The Yearbook of English Studies | Cedric Watts | 1983
This text is Watt’s response to Achebe’s speech “An Image of Africa,” and in particular, a defense of Conrad and Heart of Darkness.
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Imperialism: Crash Course World History #35 | YouTube | 3:22-6:21
This video covers a lot of 19th-century imperialism. The link below will take you to the segment of the video that directly addresses The Scramble for Africa. This page from St. John’s College at the University of Cambridge has a simpler overview. This one from New World Encyclopedia is much more detailed.
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How Conrad’s imperial horror story Heart of Darkness resonates with our globalised times | The Conversation | John Attridge | 2018
Part summary of Heart of Darkness, part commentary on historical and social context, this article is interesting and engaging.
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Revisiting Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness: Women, Symbolism and Resistance | Kathryn Marie Smith | 2009 | Masters Thesis
”Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is, admittedly, a text with many racist, imperialist and sexist subtexts. A feminist literary analysis, however, can extract women’s empowerment and agency. This thesis takes a closer look at the Mistress (also known as the African woman) and the Intended, two women with vastly different racial and class backgrounds who, in their own ways, demonstrate resistance.”
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Heart of Darkness PDF | WJCCSchools.org
This packet is good in its entirety, and would be great for giving students as a pre-reading or while-reading resource. Of particular interest to us was the content under “Critical Overview” (pdf page 8-9) and “Criticism” (pdf pages 9-21) which provides insights by Liz Brent, Ted Billy, and Adam Gillon.
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Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness | The London School of Journalism | Gareth Rowlands
In this short article, Rowlands summarizes the plot and then delves into the themes and perspectives that make up the novel.
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An Analysis of “the Real,” as Reflected in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness | Cleveland State University | Beverly Rose Joyce | 2008
”Heart of Darkness, as a framed narrative, questions perception and authenticity. It is difficult to discern Marlow’s individual voice, for it is buried within a layering of narration. Critics ascribe the words of the text to Marlow, claiming he is the one who, in Achebe’s words, dehumanizes Africans. Yet, the quotation marks suggest otherwise. Perception is relevant to an analysis of Heart of Darkness, for it is unclear whose poitn of view constructs the text, that of Kurtz, Marlow, or the frame narrator. Since the narrative is likely composed of multiple perspectives, it is difficult to determine whose reality it reveals.”
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Heart of Darkness: A Primer for the Holocaust | VQRonline.org | Henry J. Laskowsky | Winter 1982
This essay blends Heart of Darkness with Francis Ford Coppola’s film Apocalypse Now with themes in Elie Wiesel’s Night. It’s an interesting read, and would be great if you’re looking to highlight the intertextual aspects of the text.
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Apocalypse Now: Crash Course Film Criticism #8 | YouTube | 11:54
This video is mostly about the process of filming and producing Apocalypse Now, but does include some great discussion of the psychological aspects in Heart of Darkness, the novel the film is based on.
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Lesson plans and other teaching resources
Moving Beyond “Huh?”: Ambiguity in Heart of Darkness | Yale National Initiative | Ludy P. Aguada
This page provides content objectives, teaching strategies, classroom activities, rubrics and more for teaching Heart of Darkness.
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Heart of Darkness | Mr. Ford’s English Class | Teacher Blog
On this page, Mr. Ford has posted a reading schedule and a variety of activities and connecting resources. Content is geared towards his students, but it’s easy to follow and well organized.
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A Teacher’s Guide to the Signet Classics Edition of Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad | Teacher’s Guide
Classic teacher’s guide with activities for pre, during, and post-reading, list of main character, information on Conrad, and more.
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Dr. Bordelon’s World Lit II Course Site | Heart of Darkness | Teacher Website
Lots of information on this page. What we liked best is “Questions to mull over as you interpret the story” (scroll past halfway point to read). Questions are thoughtful and vary from recall to inference to analysis.
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Enriched Classics Curriculum Guide to: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad | Teacher’s Guide
This teacher’s guide has a variety of activities that use Heart of Darkness to teach a variety of literature-based topics: plot and character development, mood and theme, etc.
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Teaching a ‘Racist and Outdated Text’: A Journey into My Own Heart of Darkness | Journal of Educational Controversy | Melody Wong, 2008
If you’re grappling with how to teach a text where discussions about racism can’t be avoided, we recommend this text. From the abstract: “In wrestling with her teaching of Joseph Conrad’s frequently challenged novella, Heart of Darkness, a high school English teacher discovers her own complicity with and complacency about Western political, economic and social hegemony. Ultimately, her research into the historical, social, and political contexts of the 19th century novella enable her to understand its immediate relevance to the privileged world that she and her students live in, and to take her students on a personal journey in the modern “heart of darkness.”
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Heart of Darkness
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The Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World
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Heart of Darkness (Bloom's Guides)
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Approaches to Teaching Conrad's "Heart of Darkness"
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The Portable Conrad (Penguin Classics)
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Heart of Darkness (1993)
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