CliffsNotes on Conrad's Heart of Darkness & The Secret Sharer [Student Edition] [Paperback]

Daniel Moran (Author)

Book Description

Series: Cliffsnotes Literature Guides | Publication Date: June 19, 2000

The original CliffsNotes study guides offer expert commentary on major themes, plots, characters, literary devices, and historical background. The latest generation of titles in this series also feature glossaries and visual elements that complement the classic, familiar format.

In CliffsNotes on The Heart of Darkness & The Secret Sharer, you come to understand how each of these stories deals with the "dark side" of the human character. Heart of Darkness is a journey up the Congo River to where an ivory agent, Kurtz, has succumbed to human weakness and evil, and has disintegrated into a grotesque creature. The Secret Sharer is an allegorical examination of a timid man who struggles to stifle the more physical and dangerous part of himself. Eventually, he resolves this duality and becomes more daring — and, therefore, more complete.

This concise supplement to Joseph Conrad's The Heart of Darkness & The Secret Sharer helps you understand the overall structure of the novels, actions and motivations of the characters, and the social and cultural perspectives of the author. Features that help you study include

•  Part-by-part summaries and commentaries
• Character maps that graphically illustrates the relationships among the characters
• Critical essays that provide expert insight on the novels' structure
• Review sections that test your knowledge

Classic literature or modern modern-day treasure — you'll understand it all with expert information and insight from CliffsNotes study guides.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

39 New and Revised Titles. The Best Just Got Better! Plus Glossary from Webster's New World^™ Dictionary Anthem Atlas Shrugged Beowulf Brave New World The Canterbury Tales The Catcher in the Rye The Contender The Crucible The Fountainhead Frankenstein The Grapes of Wrath Great Expectations The Great Gatsby Hamlet Heart of Darkness & The Secret Sharer Huckleberry Finn The Iliad Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Inherit the Wind Jane Eyre Julius Caesar The Killer Angels King Lear The Lord of the Flies Macbeth 1984 The Odyssey Oedipus Trilogy The Once and Future King Othello The Outsiders Pride and Prejudice The Red Badge of Courage Romeo and Juliet The Scarlet Letter A Separate Peace A Tale of Two Cities To Kill a Mockingbird Wuthering Heights See inside for the complete line-up of available CliffsNotes! Check Out the All-New CliffsNotes Guides To AOL^®, iMacs^™, eBay^®, Windows^® 98, Investing, Creating Web Pages, and more! More Than Notes! CliffsComplete^™ CliffsTestPrep^™ CliffsQuickReview^™ CliffsAP^™ Over 300 CliffsNotes Available @ cliffsnotes.com Downloadable 24 hours a day Free daily e-mail newsletters Free tips, tricks, and trivia Free online CliffsNotes catalog Free self-assessment tools Freeware and shareware downloads

About the Author

Daniel Moran is a high school teacher and has won many teaching awards. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 97 pages
• Publisher: Cliffs Notes; 4th edition (June 19, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764585843
• ISBN-13: 978-0764585845
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.3 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #281,081 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #1 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Eastern European
  • #13 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Eastern European
  • #29 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Literature & Fiction > Books & Reading > Reference

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fine guide, concise, well written, December 28, 2005

By 

magellan (Santa Clara, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: CliffsNotes on Conrad's Heart of Darkness & The Secret Sharer (Paperback)

This Cliff Notes guide provides a clear and concise analysis and discussion of the famous Conrad short novel. The author discusses Conrad's personal background as it relates to the story, and the characters, themes, plot elements, the social and cultural views and philosophy of the author, and many other aspects of the book in an easy to understand way.

Conrad is one of the few novelists, which include Melville, Tolstoy, Dostoevski, Lawrence Stern, and Jonathan Swift, whose work continues to impress me and has aged well as I've moved into my more mature years. Partly this is because of the dark themes he treats, such as the violence and cruelty and savagery lurking just below the thin veneer of civilization, the brooding and melancholy power of his prose, and partly because English wasn't even his native language--he even learned it as an adult on shipboard.

Heart of Darkness is one Conrad's shortest but greatest works in this sense, and after having read it in high school, I recently reacquainted myself with it after 30 years. I was just as impressed as I was back then. Most readers and movie fans will know the story's influence on Coppola's "Apocalypse Now," which is many ways a tribute to the Conrad book. This is a great book by one of history's greatest authors whose themes continue to resonate today. All an observant and intelligent individual has to do today to realize that Conrad was right about man's innermost nature and that we have not progressed at all in the last 10,000 years of "civilized history" is to look at the current sad state of the world and of humanity in general.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars We are reviewing the "notes" not the book or movie, September 5, 2000

By 

bernie "xyzzy" (Arlington, Texas) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: CliffsNotes on Conrad's Heart of Darkness & The Secret Sharer (Paperback)

Could not stand reading or watching anything about Vietnam for about 10 years. I eventually watched the movie "Apocalypse Now" I found it interesting but it did not relate to anything in the central highlands. Later I saw "Pork Lips Now" and could relate this to the movie. Finally someone told me that the whole thing was based on "Heart of Darkness". So I decided to read the book. I found it fascinating and much better than the movie. However I could not see the forest of the trees and needed some help in showing me what I was looking at. Because I was not in some school class, I turned to the "Cliffs Notes" Of course my views don't match the notes exactly but they gave me some questions to ask and showed me the forest. The notes include:
* Life of the Author
* Introductions to the Novel
* Lists of Characters
* Brief Plot Synopses
* Summaries & Critical Commentaries
* Critical Essay
* Suggested Essay Topics
* Selected Bibliography
Later I found a movie that was much closer to the original story,
"Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death" (1988)

Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death ~ Shannon Tweed

5.0 out of 5 stars A "must have" companion to the book..., August 14, 2010

By 

L. B. (WI United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: CliffsNotes on Conrad's Heart of Darkness & The Secret Sharer (Paperback)

This is a well written study guide to one of the greatest novels ever written. It helps to unravel all the layers, symbols and themes of Conrad's masterpiece. Without it, I am sure I would not have appreciated the book as much as I do.