Book Review: Heart of Darkness

Jan 13, 2026

Heart of Darkness- Review
AP Seminar is a course that helps develop thinking and critical skills for students, allowing us to explore a wide range of themes or topics. We are currently learning themes, such as racism and colonialism, by reading poems and articles, such as “The African Character,” by Georg Hegel, and “The White Man’s Burden,” by Rudyard Kipling. These works both cover the struggles of non-white people, who are being suppressed by white people. In our novel study, Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, the novel covers the theme of colonization of the Africans in the Congo, who are viewed as “uncivilized savages”.
Heart of Darkness introduces us to five characters on a ship headed towards the Congo. Marlow, one of the people on the ship, explains the story about his adventure and experience in the Congo. The entire novel fixates on Marlow’s experiences, and he takes us with him. While settling in the Congo, Marlow frequently heard the name of an intelligent, mysterious man named Mr. Kurtz. Marlow and a group of pilgrims head off to Central Africa to see him; however, he experiences different challenges during his journey.
The overall idea of Heart of Darkness is to delve into the darkness and eeriness of the human soul in Africa. It conveys the terror of Western colonialism, which empowers us to be aware of the control white people had over the Africans. Although Heart of Darkness was written in 1899, it reflects our world today because we still capture the parallels of racism and inequality. One example is the brutal situation of how innocent kids of Palestine are being murdered and starved to death by Israel, when they haven’t committed a single sin. This connects to how the Africans are being dehumanized and degraded by the Europeans.
In contrast, we see less racism in the modern world today because people are more open-minded and don’t base ethnicity and race on a hierarchy. Conrad’s goal in writing Heart of Darkness was to direct attention towards Africa and to provide a powerful evaluation of European imperialism. Conrad covers the subject adequately, but performs it in a racist manner; he repeatedly uses racial slurs and characterizes Marlow to view Africans as props and objectifies them.
Conrad structures his argument about European imperialism through one of his characters, Marlow. In Heart of Darkness, Marlow sees the Six Chained African Men, and he feels sympathy for them, “Six black men advanced in a file, toiling up the path. They walked erect and slow, balancing small baskets full of earth on their heads, and the clink kept time with their footsteps.” (Conrad 17) The Six Chained Men look malnourished, and they are being severely abused. Right after the incident, he sees a starving boy and instinctively hands him a biscuit because he has sympathy towards the boy, “The man seemed young-almost a boy-but you know with them it’s hard to tell. I found nothing else to do but to offer him one of my good Swede’s ship’s biscuits I had in my pocket.” (Conrad 19). This expresses that Marlow felt pity for the malnourished, starving boy by offering him a biscuit. These two examples portray how readers might interpret the novel in distinct ways. Most readers find Conrad’s ideas supporting racism or against it, depending on the reader’s perspective.

Themes:
Imperialism, Colonialism, Racism: The book critiques the brutality and cruelty of colonialism and explores its goals and behavior. It reveals how the goal of “civilizing the natives” masks the true goal of greed and exploitation. For example, the colonizers claim they force the natives to work so they can be more human, but in reality, it is to exploit the natives so the colonizers get rich.
Darkness operates both literally and metaphorically. Literally, Marlow’s steamboat travels deeper into the Congo, where the terrain becomes twisted and the river is described as “a black and incomprehensible frenzy” (Conrad 45). Metaphorically, darkness symbolizes the moral corruption within the colonizers, especially Kurtz, whose descent into tyranny and violence reveals the evil that unchecked power can unleash.
Hypocrisy: The colonizers claim they are superior to the Africans because they think they are naturally civilized, and to them, Africans are savage and uncivilized. And to civilize them, they murder, enslave, and exploit, which mirrors the uncivilized behavior they claim to be suppressing. For example, among the reasons the colonizers claim the Africans are uncivilized is that they kill people normally. However, the colonizers enslave, starve, brutalize, and kill the Africans, showing that the colonizers are no different from the colonized.
Idolization: Mr. Kurtz is idolized by multiple characters in the book, each viewing him the way that suits him the best. The natives worship Mr. Kurtz as a god, performing elaborate rituals for him, and finding as much ivory as they can to please him, drawn to him by his eloquence and his manipulative aspects, and by how he learned and adapted to their culture. The Russian trader is blinded by Mr. Kurtz’s genius, so he serves Mr. Kurtz and defends his obviously unfair actions, even though Mr. Kurtz intended to kill him, believing that Mr. Kurtz has ultimate knowledge and insight. Lastly, Marlow, who is the least fanatical and most sensible of the three, grows obsessed with Mr. Kurtz, hoping to meet him, thinking he is a symbol of knowledge and truth.
Psychological and moral decay and madness: This book examines how power and isolation corrupt and decay the morality and psychology of man. Mr. Kurtz used to be a genius and had great potential, but his power gave him the ability to do whatever he wanted, and paired with isolation that freed him from accountability, caused him to do morally unacceptable things. Additionally, this isolation with no one of his rank, his first language, and his intellectual abilities made him lose his mind.
Claim about racism: Conrad chose the words for his book carefully, writing elaborate, complex, and sophisticated sentences that convey a lot of meaning. He uses a lot of figurative language, metaphorical words, and analogies, making Heart of Darkness a very eloquent novella. When this novel first came out, it was considered very progressive, sympathetic to the plight of the oppressed Africans, and it was thought to be a tough critic of imperialism and colonialism. In his time, the late Victorian era, racism was mainstream and slavery was a hot topic that hadn’t simmered down yet after its abolition, and in general, many common folk opposed slavery and racism; meanwhile, the aristocracy favored it. The common folk were not very well-educated, so they understood the words as they were, but when the rich person would read the same words, he or she would understand the deeper meaning. I believe Conrad used this to his advantage, and in addition to his arsenal of literary devices, he was able to make a novel that appealed to everyone, but in reality, he was a thoroughgoing racist who used every aspect of writing to his advantage.

Support:
A very evident show of racism is how little the Africans speak, and how poorly they speak. The Congolese only speak on two different occasions, and white people speak thousands of words. A striking example of when a black person should have spoken but didn’t during the ambush, when Marlow was with the helmsman, who Marlow said about “ He was an improved specimen; he could fire up a vertical boiler”(Conrad 46). He was stuck with him for an undefined amount of time before the helmsman was stuck with a spear. In the two times when the Africans spoke, their language was very primitive, lacked fully formed sentences, and the words were pronounced incorrectly. Here is how a dialogue between an African went: “‘Catch ’im,’ he snapped, with a bloodshot widening of his eyes and a flash of sharp teeth—‘catch ’im. Give ’im to us.’ ‘To you, eh?’ I asked; ‘what would you do with them?’ ‘Eat ’im!’”(Conrad 51). In this case, he is substituted with inm, the words are really simple, and the sentence is not fully formed.
Conrad dehumanizes the Africans by reducing them to mere objects or merging them with the African landscape. Conrad never gives any of the Africans a name, but instead, chooses to occasionally identify them by their occupation (The helmsman), but most of the time, he describes them by their looks, posture, or clothes. Also, a lot of the time, he does not even say that they are also human, resorting to just calling them figures, like “black shapes” (Conrad 22). He never describes their significance, their personality, their life, their status, or anything a person would say when introducing somebody else. But when it comes to a white person, he is described with utmost precision, including their personal lives, the exact clothing they wear, and the size and proportion of their limbs. For example, when he met the chief accountant, Marlow says, “I saw a high starched collar, white cuffs, a light alpaca jacket, snowy trousers, a clean necktie, and varnished boots. No hat. Hair parted, brushed, oiled, under a green-lined parasol held in a big white hand. He was amazing, and had a penholder behind his ear”(Conrad 20). However, just before it, this is how he describes the Africans “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” (Conrad 19), and “Near the same tree two more bundles of acute angles sat with their legs drawn up”( Conrad 20). The difference between the descriptions is very obvious; Conrad recognises the white people but dehumanizes the Africans.

Joseph Conrad Biography/Connection to Heart of Darkness
Joseph Conrad, born December 3rd, 1857, was a Polish author who was admired for the complexity of his language, though in actuality, a lot of his fancy language was merely a cosmetic choice and was used to make his writing seem more profound. Conrad’s father, Apollo Nalęcz Korzeniowski, was a poet, and when Conrad was at a very young age, his father started to translate the words of Shakespeare and Victor Hugo to support the family. In 1869, his father died due to an extreme coughing disease called tuberculosis. Due to this situation, Conrad started to live with his uncle, who later sent him to school in Kraków and then to Switzerland. As a young boy, Conrad got bored of school and really wanted to travel by sea. Conrad went to Marseille in 1874, wanting to go to the sea.
Conrad made many voyages, served 16 years in the British merchant navy, and even joined a boat called The Palestine. Soon, he returned to London in September 1883 and joined a voyage which gave him material for his novel. Conrad then traveled to the Congo in Central Africa, which was one of his dreams as a child. When Conrad was very young, he told himself, “When I grow up I shall go there.” Conrad’s childhood dream took positive shape in the ambition to command a Congo River steamboat. Using any encouragement he could find, he went to Brussels and made an appointment. His experience and feelings in the Congo very much influenced a lot of things he wrote in Heart of Darkness.
Heart of Darkness is one of Conrad’s most famous works he has ever written. The title itself refers to the heart of evil, and how Africa is a “dark continent.” Conrad spent 4 months in the Congo, documenting his experiences. Conrad essentially exaggerates his experiences in the Congo to make the plot of the book more interesting and presents a racist view of the place itself. This makes it difficult for the audience to view his experiences in the Congo negatively.
Overall, Conrad grew up writing these different stories and novels, essentially from a racist view. In Heart of Darkness, Conrad dehumanizes Africans in so many ways, and at the time, people thought that this novel was encouraging and very powerful. This novel, based on Conrad’s experiences in the Congo, reflects deeply on how Africans were viewed in the early 1900s. His writings were very influenced by his experiences at sea. Eventually, his life at sea ended when his guardian, Tadeusz Bobrowski, passed. Conrad still continued to write, and ended up getting married and having two children. In the end, Conrad, in his home, died from a heart attack on August 3rd, 1924.

Recommendations: Would we recommend the Book?
Lubna: As a 10th grader currently taking AP Seminar, I would not recommend the novel Heart of Darkness for any future students. The difficulty of this book requires a very high level of reading comprehension, and it is just very hard to understand as a 10th grader. When I was reading this book, I could not interpret what the characters were talking about in any way. In this book, the monologues are written in a way that people used to talk about in the early 20th century, which is very hard to read and understand compared to the way we speak today. The author uses very sophisticated vocabulary, and as a sophomore, I was just not prepared for that kind of language. Furthermore, the plot itself was just so boring. In the novel, they are basically looking for Mr. Kurtz the entire time. There isn’t much action at all, which, in my opinion, does not make the book fun to read. So with that being said, with the book being very hard to understand, and the story being extremely boring, I would not recommend this book for future students.

Yasmeen: As a 10th grader who is currently taking AP Seminar, I disliked Heart of Darkness because the writing Conrad uses is confusing and difficult to comprehend, which made it hard to follow the plot and understand what was really happening. One example is when Conrad says, “It was unearthly, and the men were-No, they were not inhumane. Well, you know that was the worst of it- this suspicion of their not being inhuman.” (Conrad, 45). This line, like many others, is complicated and hard to get a good understanding of what it means. Throughout the book, he uses language that left me unsure of what he was actually trying to say. Moments such as Marlow’s long and unclear monologue made me not like the book because they often went off topic and made it hard to stay engaged with the story. This quotation supports my dislike for the book because it shows how his writing can be conflicting. While I understand that the book tries to explore deep themes like colonialism, the way it was written made it hard for me to connect with the message and enjoy the reading experience.

Reem: As a 10th grader who is currently taking AP Seminar, I disliked Heart of Darkness because the plot is mundane and the words are too sophisticated. For example, “A deadened burst of mighty splashes and snorts reached us from afar, as though an ichthyosaurus had been taking a bath of glitter in the great river” (Conrad, 36). Moreover, this sentence is confusing and hard to understand, just like the other sentences in this book. Additionally, the plot in Heart of Darkness is also very uninteresting; it only talks about Marlow’s experience meeting a mentally insane trader. All in all, I wouldn’t recommend Heart of Darkness to a high schooler because the words are complicated to understand, and the plot is uninteresting.

Simay: As a 10th grader who is currently taking AP Seminar, I happened to dislike Heart of Darkness because Joseph Conrad was expressing his own racist thoughts and ideas through his text subtly. The appearances or introductions of Africans in the novel were worded incredibly condescending and demeaning way towards them. One example is, “…a burst of yells, a whirl of black limbs, a mass of hands clapping of feet stamping, of bodies swaying, of eyes rolling, under the droop of heavy and motionless foliage” (Conrad, 45). These descriptions that occurred frequently caused me to not like the book because the text reflects racist stereotypes. Throughout the book, the Africans would make inhuman sounds rather than speak a proper language. This quote supports my overall dislike for the book because it shows Conrad’s failure to grant Africans humanity, instead using them like props and further dehumanizing them.

Leena: As a 10th grader who is currently taking AP Seminar, I disliked Heart of Darkness because the novel constantly shows the support of racism and colonialism throughout the book. Moments such as when Marlow describes the relationship between him and the helmsman as a “kinship,” and when he saw the Six Chained African Men, made me not like the book because when he describes his relationship to the helmsman as a kinship, he is expressing how Black people are less evolved human beings than non-Black people are. When Marlow saw the Six Chained African Men, he saw the dangers of colonialism because they had their rights taken away and were being taken advantage of. To quote the author, “And the intimate profundity of that look he gave me received his hurt remains to this day in my memory- like a claim of distant kinship affirmed in a supreme moment.” (Conrad 65). “Six black men advanced in a file, toiling up the path. They walked erect and slow, balancing small baskets full of earth on their heads, and the clink kept time with their footsteps.” (Conrad 17). This evidence from the text supports my dislike for the book because it shows how Conrad characterized Marlow to look racist and how colonialism is frequently portrayed in this novel.

Suhayl: My formal rating for Heart of Darkness is a 2.5/10. It has its pros, including depth and descriptiveness. However, I have some things that I did not enjoy. First, Conrad uses big words that most people do not know, such as superciliousness. This forces me to look at the dictionary at around twice a page, which gets really annoying. Also, Conrad uses many literary devices that can be interpreted in many ways, and often, these metaphors can be confusing and require rereading the passage a few times to grasp the meaning of it. Also, the story advances really slowly. Conrad often stops the course of events for sometimes several pages for Marlow to reflect on events, such as after the helmsman was killed, there was a pause for around three pages in which Marlow thinks about Mr. Kurtz’s state and contemplates whether he is dead or alive. Also, there are many dialogues between characters that do not add anything to the story. For instance, the second chapter starts with Marlow overhearing a conversation between the manager and his uncle, in which the manager complains about Mr. Kurtz. This does not mean much to the story and does not add any information that will be useful to know later. In addition, Marlow takes long pauses to describe a landscape or a person, which I view as just wasting ink. I will still comprehend what is going on without all of this, and in fact, sometimes these descriptions throw me off course and confuse me. Also, the story is very unengaging and boring, with very little action throughout the course. Most of the story is spent either in dialogue or contemplation. For example, during the ambush, I expected shooting and fighting, but instead, it was just like any other page, as Marlow just stands there with the helmsman explaining the situation until the helmsman is speared and killed, and even then, Marlow does not take action or even panic, but he just toots the horn and stays inside until the attacked left. In addition, the story is very anticlimactic. Most of the novella is spent glorifying Mr. Kurtz and exciting the reader for the moment when Marlow finally meets Mr. Kurtz, but in the end, the meeting does not include very much interaction. Even when he died, it was not epic, but it was just illness, and his final words, although being iconic, are not as haunting as I thought. All in all, this book is filled with deep and complex words and figurative language, making it hard to understand and causing confusion even when I understand the literal meaning of the words. With all these disadvantages, I would recommend this novel for anyone who is highly sophisticated, enjoys metaphorical devices, and someone who likes plenty of space to interpret the book.