Where is The Heart of Darkness?

Going in to this book my biggest questions were who or where is the heart of darkness and what does it symbolize?
The method of reading I chose was reading-to-writing connection for heart of darkness. As I was reading I tried to focus on how Conrad was telling this story. I noticed he used a lot of descriptive words to describe to scene. He used lots of questions to convey Marlow’s thoughts. Conrad’s style of writing seems to be is very dark, so I thought I would look in to his life. Most writers have tragic or hard lives and I found Conrad was no exception. Orphaned at 17, he started sailing on British ships. This explains the advanced boat terminology used in the book and some character strong nationalism for Brittan. Conrad sailing into the Belgian Congo made me curious, as prepare the Heart of Darkness was related to his experiences?
Part One
The one single word has stood out the most to me is savage. Although Marlow does show compassion towards the savages, I still find that the story relates to the natives as more of an idea/symbol than as humans. When Marlow is talking to the brick maker the brick maker speaks of the new gang of virtue, I automatically assumed that the morals and virtue would be light, and that would make darkness conquering and consumption. I realized that darkness symbolized the mysterious forest and the unknown.
Part Two
One of the similes that stood out to me was Marlow relating the dense jungle of Africa and its inhabitants to the prehistoric earth. But the main idea I had was that darkness opens your eyes and light blinds you. The darkness of the forest opens your eyes to the unknown. But light blinds you like the fog that surrounded the ship. Light blinds you by having a false security and can blind you to reality. As I was reading I also noticed a line about women “…we must help them stay in a beautiful world.” This made me flash back to The Great Gatsby when Daisy says she hope her daughter would be a “beautiful fool”. I also found a connection to The Great Gatsby because Marlow did not like the people he was surrounded by just like Nick Caraway.
Part Three
As Kurtz slowly dies in part three, I realize where the heart of darkness lies. Man has the heart of darkness. Even with the new gang of virtue and the good intentions of white man’s burden, in the center man was a heart ruled by evil. I personally don’t believe that man has a heart of darkness, but a center of faith and hope. So, to me, I found it comforting that Marlow uses light to blind Kurtz’s woman, by telling her that his last word was her name.

The Great Gatsby (and his not so great friends)

By annotating this book, the method I chose was text to text connection, I was forced to summarize and, stop and really think not only about what is happening but why the author made it happen.

While reading chapter one for the second time I realized that Nick Caraway gives away the whole plot line by hinting at events that happen, and the personality of the main charters. Did Fitzgerald want to purposely give the plot away like Shakespeare did in Romeo and Juliet? Why did Fitzgerald choose to make his characters so unlikeable? I think any woman would be angry if they were compared to selfish, reckless Jordan, or ditzy Daisy who is constantly trying to convince Nick she’s deep. Why did Fitzgerald include the scene with the clock during Jay and Daisy’s reunion? It was a very awkward moment and not important to the plot. Does the clock falling represent his desire to travel back in time to when he and Daisy first met falling to pieces? Is this why Gatsby’s obsession with recreating the past put in to the book? Is this is an idea that people of the 1920’s could relate to? Was that a popular idea in the 1920’s, did people want to recreate a past before WWI?
One of the characters that I found most important was Doctor T.J Eckleburg. His eyes witnessed account of everything that was important. I wondered why Fitzgerald would choose to add this essential character as a billboard. Did Fitzgerald mean for Dr. Eckleburg's eyes to be the prying eyes of society, peering in to the lives of the rich and famous? Or are the glasses are as Wilson believes the eyes of God watching our every move and moral miscommings? If Eckleburg’s eyes are the eyes of God is he judging all the sins that took place in his sight? Would he punish Daisy for Myrtle’s instant death or Tom’s lust for Wilson’s wife?

My final thoughts on this book (since I know you have to read a bunch of these) are that I did not care for the charters or what they represent. This book is an exclent reprentaion of the roaring 20’s.On the marking of the book what I liked about this method was renaming the chapters from roman numerals to An Absolute Rose or Valley of Ashes which helped me remember what each chapter was about.

My next book to tackle is Heart of Darkness. :]