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Teachers' Resource Web Study Questions on Joseph Conrad Heart
of Darkness 1. What is the importance of the frame narrative? How does it ask us to read the rest of the novella? What are the issues, which it raises as pertinent to Marlow's story? How does it raise them? What do the four figures on the boat represent? And what warnings does Conrad give us about how to read his narrator? 2. Consider Marlow's observation to his listeners, "And this also... has been one of the dark places of the earth" (176 1). Where is he talking about? And what is he comparing it to? 3. Conrad presents us with a very, different kind of problematics of reading than the other novels we have read. What is the model of reading we are given M Heart of Darkness? Pick a particular image or landscape—possibilities include: the blank maps, the Central station, the Congo river, Kurtz—and discuss it in terms of how it challenges our ability to read or interpret it. 4. Like Marlow, we arc faced with the enigma of Kurtz. Consider all the various, contradictory kinds of information we have about him, What do we learn from the rumors about Kurtz'? From his own writings and drawings? From Marlow's interpretation of these artifacts? From Kurtz himself? Choose one of these and discuss. 5. How are women represented in the text, and what are their various functions (note that the women perform different functions)? In what terms does Marlow discuss them'? How arc they positioned with respect to the action of the novel? In your answer, focus on either a particular woman (the intended, Marlow's aunt, the women in the office, the African woman) or on a particular issue. 6. What do you make of Kurtz's allegorical painting of the woman? What does she represent'? What doe her various attributes (the blindfold, the torch, etc.) signify? 7. Compare Conrad's representation of the native culture to Defoe's. What are the most striking changes between the two texts? What does cannibalism represent In Heart of Darkness? Also consider the distinction which Marlow makes between conquering and colonizing another land. What cultural anxieties does Conrad's novella make manifest in its representation of the cannibals? 8. Consider all the imagery of death in the novel. One of the more striking examples is the "grove of death" which rings the Outer station, but Conrad uses similar language throughout the novella. What is the effect of such imagery? How does it inflect our reading of the text? 9. Pay close attention to Marlow's journey. Note that in many ways the various stages of his journey can be marked by the various company stations at which he stops. Explain the significance of what Marlow finds in each place. What kind of progression occurs? How might the journey be read as a spiritual one? |