San Antonio College Library

Fiction has tremendous power to portray historical truth - and to communicate history to audiences who may not otherwise attend to the subject. This book presents Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness to students and general readers as an insightful guide to the history of Europe and Africa in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The information in this volume: presents a fresh perspective on Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness by presenting...

Whereas Marlow has usually been discussed as a literary device who is of no special interest in himself, this study argues that Conrad portrays Marlow and his relationships with a psychological depth that is unsurpassed in literature. In "Youth," "Heart of Darkness," and Lord Jim, he is a continuously-evolving character whose thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are expressions of his personality and experience. Understanding Marlow's motivations newly...

"Adelman uncovers political, metaphysical, and prophetic insights in the text, and clarifies the novel's symbols, themes, and unconscious workings of the hero." -- A novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad in which the sailor Charles Marlow tells his listeners the story of his assignment as steamer captain for a Belgian company in the African interior.

"For one hundred years, Heart of Darkness has been among the most widely read and taught novels in the English language. Hailed as an incisive indictment of European imperialism in Africa upon its publication in 1899, more recently it has been repeatedly denounced as racist and imperialist." "Peter Firchow counters these claims, and his rational, carefully argued response allows the charges of Conrad's alleged bias to be evaluated as objectively as...