Images of contradiction and comparison in Joseph Conrad’s heart of darkness

Abstract EN

In Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad utilizes the technique of presenting the images of contradiction and comparison to reveal the discrepancy between the colonizers' claim of civilizing the Africans and the savagery with which they control them.

The research shows how the novel treats its theme through the presentation of the contradictory images of primitive Africa and civilized Europe, of the order in the colonizers' stations and the devastation they inflict everywhere in Congo, of light and darkness, of the elegance of the European employees and the deformity of the native characters, and of the eloquence of the Europeans and the lack of expression of the Africans, as well as through the comparison between Kurtz, the protagonist of the novel, and Marlow its narrator, and between England's past and present, being a colonized and a colonizing country.

These contradictions and comparisons imply Conrad's denunciation of colonization as a process of enlightening and betray its atrocious deeds.