摘要
My essay on Heart of Darkness explores Conrad’s dramatization of the voice and heart dynamic in the novella as a penetration of the deep-lying rationale of colonial operation and more generally the human condition at the turn of the 20th century.Three different forms of assumed centrality in the novella-capital,Eurocentrism,and the African interior as detrimental void symbolized by the heart of darkness form concentric circles that interconnect and work in concert as the core colonial ideology and produce a sense of incongruity and absurdity.The voice of this colonial ideological apparatus disguised as the universal subject of humanity and rationality finds its best expression in the eloquence of Kurtz,the specimen of culture seduced by its very opposite-the wilderness-right in the heart of darkness.“The horror”,as his final verdict of life as a European with real intent of living on his own terms at the turn of the 20th century,sums up the predicament of a civilization with too much culture and self-absorption for its own good.
