Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness a potent and contentious novella by Polish-born English author Joseph Conrad was initially serialised in Blackwoods Magazine in 1899. The novella which is primarily set in the Belgian Congo examines the crippling effects of colonisation on both the coloniser and the colonised. English sailor Charles Marlow the story's unreliable narrator is hired by a Belgian corporation to command a steamship in the recently created Congo Free State. Marlow sails upriver in quest of another corporate employee named Kurtz after hearing rumours that he is supposedly stationed in the interior. Marlow sees the barren blackness of men's hearts and the terror and brutality colonisers unleashed on the heartland of Africa during the journey and during his encounter with Kurtz. Conrad's representation of African culture and society has drawn criticism for its overt racism from a number of post-colonial authors including Chinua Achebe. Apocalypse Now Francis Ford Copolla's epic film about the Vietnam War was likewise influenced by the novella (1979).