Heart of Darkness

main themes

• madness

• imperialism

• geography

• truth

madness main points

• racism

• Kurtz (as Marlow’s double)

• Freud’s psychoanalysis

significance of Freud

• 1899 Interpretation of Dreams

• mapping the mind

• unconscious dominating conscious

• legacy of Darwin; not being in control of ourselves

imperialism main points

• autobiographical

• Kurtz

• black vs white

geography main points

• river

• dreams

• maps

• temporality

truth main points

• unstable narration

• evil

• negatives

significance of narration

• reader participates in the instantaneous perceptions

• impressionistic immediacy

• framed narrative

• unstable reality

• dream-like suggests self-centred worldview

• conscious mind being overdetermined by the unconscious

significance of Kurtz

• inevitable consequence of European civilisation

• embodies hypocrisy of imperialism

• personification of the civilised yet barbaric Europe

• representation of Marlow’s unconscious mind

significance of rivers

• structures the entire novel

• traditionally navigational tools to draw maps

• evolution vs degeneration

• entering the time of a dream (time-travel, Africans as early forms of evolution)

significance of the gothic

• initially gothic unreality, but the legacy of real experience renders it uncomfortable

• 19th century renaissance of the split-subject personality