Research Paper on:
Literary Analysis of Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
is often a disturbing story as well as an enlightening story of the condition of man. In the following paper we examine many of the elements of Conrads story. The  elements discussed and analyzed are theme, structure, conflict, character and characterization, symbolism and style, point of view, setting, and irony. Theme One of the most potent themes within  Conrads book is that of colonialism as it involved the ideals of a supposedly superior race, the race of white men. In Conrads story we see how the native people  are essentially destroyed through the colonial peoples assumption that they are better than the natives in every possible way. They infiltrate the people and their lifestyles, inflicting their own ideals  and customs on the people in a very oppressive manner. In essence, the whites overtake the natives, leaving them helpless and hopeless in the face of such oppression, as is  seen in the following excerpt from Conrads book: "Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth, half coming out, half effaced within  the dim light, in all the attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair. Another mine on the cliff went off, followed by a slight shudder of the soil under my feet.  The work was going on. The work! And this was the place where some of the helpers had withdrawn to die. They were dying slowly it was very clear. They  were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now, nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom" (NA). These oppressors,  the colonialists who possess the ideal of Imperialism, are seen through the travels of Marlow. we see how he begins in the Outer Station, moves to the Central Station and