Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad takes place in Africa during the late ninteenth centery. The two main characters are Marlow and Kurtz. Marlow is an independent person who is skeptical of the people around him, he is also a great storyteller, and althought he has many prejudices he sees through the world and knows theres more then what he sees. Kurtz is the chief of the inner station and a gifted musician as well as a painter. he is a great leader who has lots of charisma.

I decided to annotate this book to learn how to write. Conrad uses lots of symbols in his writing which helps readers to go deeper with their thinking and to get more out of the book itself. Some symbols he used were the river and fog. The river symbolizes white people being seperate from africans. Its like a barrier between the two races that neither race crosses easily. Fog symbolizes a hazy way of looking at things. Its like when a person gets some information but not enough to figure everything out. It causes people to make wrong decisions.

This book is also full of foreshadowing, which is a great way of hinting at what will come next in the book as well as a wake up call to see if the reader is paying attention and still thinking deep while reading this book.

Also, the way Conrad reads makes it easy for the reader to paint a picture of what is happening throughout the book. The reader can see whats happening as well as feeling what the characters in the book feel. " I dismiss you! I will report you- I wont look at the tusk. I forbid you to touch them. I order you to throw them into the river. You- you!" (p169) While reading this I can see and feel the anger that Kayerts feels toward Makola since Makola sold some of the men for tusks.

Heart of Darkness was a great book that I enjoyed reading. I enjoyed reading about each character as they further developed into better people. Its a great book to read to better understand how people can change based on the people and surroundings they are around.