Heart Of Darkness :: essays research papers

means of Darkness Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) was a Polish-born author who wrote in English. He became celebrated for the novels and short stories that he wrote about the sea. Conrad left Poland at the age of 16 and arrived in England at the age of 20, unable to speak English. During the next 16 years he worked his way up from deckhand to captain in the British Merchant Navy and so mastered his adopted lecture and was able to write some of its greatest novels.Conrad used experiences of his life in m either of his works. From his voyages in the Indian Ocean and Malay Archipelago came some of his best-known novels. He began with his novel Almayer&8217s Folly (1895) set in born(p)eo. Heart of Darkness is based on his voyage up the Congo River, and he uses memories of his early voyages in the Caribbean.The people of Conrad&8217s day infuriated him by thinking of him as merely a writer of sea stories. further Conrad knew his work really dealt with universal problems. He used the conce ntrated petty world of a ship to treat the universal problems that obsessed him How plunder society endure against all the destructive forces of the individual ego and the mod world and mostly, the clash between capitalism and revolution in colonized areas of the world. Conrad also wrote two absorbing novels about revolutionaries in Europe.Conrad was not in particular kindle in character for its own sake. He was most interested in men who were actively pursuing their aims in life equal the captain of the Narcissus novel, who triumphs over helplessness and evil. More often, Conrad&8217s heroes yield to the powers of weakness and evil in them than in others. But Conrad was not exactly a pessimist. He affirmed the value of the old-fashioned virtues such as courage, fidelity, and discipline. Conrad was modern font in realizing how enormously difficult it is for people to practice such virtues.Born and raised in an era of world revolution, Conrad certainly knew the effects any ch ange could leave on a society or nation. He was influenced socially simply because he lived during this time. His influences were probably the strongest as a electric razor when he moved to another country and suffered much from the lack of language, familiarity of societal and cultural norms, and class differences. Nevertheless, Conrad&8217s live in general played a tremendous role on influencing him in the make-up of this novel.