Dreams And Reality In Heart Of Darkness

4 Pages 1017 Words

Joseph Conrad’s story Heart of Darkness contains several prominent themes. The theme of dreams creates an atmosphere of ambiguity and mystery. In Heart of Darkness, Conrad portrays the characters and plot as mysterious and “dark.” The theme of dreams in Heart Of Darkness increases the ambiguity of the novel while revealing depth and personal torment in the character Marlow.

In the story, Dreams reveal Marlow in his youth. As a child, maps fascinated Marlow. He is especially entranced by the blank unexplored spaces. Marlow dreams “When I grow up, I will go there” (Conrad, 5), referring to “a white patch” on a map. Marlow actually completes his only articulated dream and explores these areas. The dream falls short of the reality. Marlow fulfilled his dream of exploring the “blank spaces,” however the reality of his experiences was extremely different from his childhood fantasies. Marlow gains valuable insight about the world and himself by fulfilling his goal and traveling to Africa. By describing Marlow’s childhood dreams, Conrad portrays Marlow as good, innocent, and pure. However, Marlow is innocent because he has not yet been exposed to the darkness.

Marlow seems to relate the entire story as he would relate a dream. The story is complex and Marlow is unsure that he is being understood. “It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream—making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is the very essence of dreams…” (Conrad, 24). Marlow’s experiences seem ambiguous and unclear. His experience is as difficult to communicate as a dream. Marlow compares his journey to a dream, emphasizing the self-discovery and internal nature of his experience.

Marlow states his general outlook on dreams; that the pa...