Customer Reviews

Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Secret Sharer (Cliffs Notes)

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I read this book for a graduate Humanities course. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, written in 1899 is a seminal work about the ills of colonialism, as well as a postmodern look at the subject of mankind. Conrad's book had a crucial influence on five important works of the twentieth century: J. G. Frazier's book The Golden Bough. Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual to Romance, T. S. Elliott's poem the Waste Land, Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces, and Francis Ford Coppolla's movie Apocalypse Now, screenplay by John Milius, was based on Conrad's book. Another interesting fact is that this work was read by Orson Welle's Mercury Theater Players on the radio and was to be his first movie. After doing some work on it he abandoned the project to do Citizen Kane! I would have loved to of seen what Welles could have done with this story. Conrad's story is so riveting in part, because he himself served as a riverboat captain. High school teachers and college professors who have discussed this book in thousands of classrooms over the years tend to do so in terms of Freud, Jung, and Nietzsche; of classical myth, Victorian innocence, and original sin; of postmodernism, postcolonialism, and poststructuralism.

Just a taste of the plot reels you in! Marlow, the narrator of Heart of Darkness and Conrad's alter ego, is hired by an ivory-trading company to sail a steamboat up an unnamed river whose shape on the map resembles "an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country and its tail lost in the depths of the land" (8). His destination is a post where the company's brilliant, ambitious star agent, Mr. Kurtz, is stationed. Kurtz has collected legendary quantities of ivory, but, Marlow learns along the way, is also rumored to have sunk into unspecified savagery. Marlow's steamer survives an attack by blacks and picks up a load of ivory and the ill Kurtz; Kurtz, talking of his grandiose plans, dies on board as they travel, downstream.

Sketched with only a few bold strokes, Kurtz's image has nonetheless remained in the memories of millions of readers: the lone white agent far up the great river, with his dreams of grandeur,his great store of precious ivory, and his fiefdom carved out of the African jungle. Perhaps more than anything, we remember Marlow, on the steamboat, looking through binoculars at what he thinks are ornamental knobs atop the fence posts in front of Kurtz's house and then finding that each is "black, dried, sunken, with closed eyelids-a head that seemed to sleep at the top of that pole, and with the shrunken dry lips showing a narrow white line of the teeth" (57).

I especially became interested in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness from the movie Apocalypse Now. There is a scene in the movie that shows Colonel Kurtz's nightstand in his cave. T. S. Elliott's poem the Waste Land is one of three books on the nightstand. The other two are Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual to Romance, and J. G. Frazier's book The Golden Bough. Anyone wanting to understand the movie Apocalypse Now, especially the character of Colonel Kurtz, and what Milius and Copolla are trying to tell their audience need to read these three books as well as Conrad's Heart of Darkness!

As a graduate student reading in philosophy and history I recommend this book for anyone interested in literature, myth, history, philosophy, religion and fans of Apocalypse Now.

I 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" ( the movie parody) 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

I had to read Heart of Darkness and write a research paper on it, and you know when a teacher assigns you and book to read you never enjoy it unless you read it on your own. While writing the research paper I hated it and everything about it, then about two years later I read it again, and this time found out everything I missed with my bad attitude. The depths that Conrad explores are unbelievable! This is were the evil nature of man egsists. After reading it a second time, I realized that the research paper that I wrote SUCKED big time.

This book was terrible when I read it the first time. It seemed to drag on and on. I had to rush through it for a class I was taking. Later, I found the time to read it at my own pace and I found it quite enjoyable. Give this book another chance! Expect to be bored the first time you read it, then read it again for meaning.

This was a novel which seemed to drag on about nothing. It carried too much symbolism in it for me to fully understand the novel.

I read the first ten pages and quit because I could not understand one word of it and it was very, very boring.

good, but lacks some detail

As a student, I attempted to read this book but found it very difficult. I could never "get" into it, and I thought my teacher was kidding when she gave us an essay test. I just don't think it was good at all!!

This book put me to sleep many times. I never even finished it, it's so boring!

Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" was boring in some parts, and rather confusing at times, because sometimes I had to read ahead to comprehend what was going on early in the book. However, it seems to be full of symbolism and morals, yet I can't figure out what they are. I enjoyed the book, as I did Conrad's style and diction, but if anyone could help me out with the analysis of it I would appreciate it! I have an essay to write about it, various topics accepted by my professor, but I really need help understanding it. If anyone could help me out, email me at RyanKlesko@aol.com. I would love to hear from anyone who even thinks they might possibly have a clue about this book. Thanks!