El corazón de las tinieblas

Synopsis of El corazón de las tinieblas

From a young age, Joseph Conrad was drawn to the African continent and the adventures that supposedly awaited those who had the courage to venture into the thick of the jungle. Contact with the reality of the Congo, the personal colony of King Leopold II of Belgium, radically changed the situation, however. The slave system, the state of terror, barbarism and genocide established by the representatives of the Belgian king to ensure the survival of the system of control of a few Europeans over millions of Africans, meant not only experiencing a disappointment of his childhood illusions, but a serious setback in his physical and psychic health. This African experience strongly marked the composition of "Heart of Darkness". Unraveling the complexity of this novel, with an innovative narrative style for its time and a clearly ambiguous theme, has been the object and task of numerous proposals that have made it a touchstone of some of the most prominent literary theories of the second half of the 20th century: from the "New Criticism" and formal moralism, to psychoanalytic theories, feminism, poststructuralism or postcolonialism, among others, in which, often, the motif of the trip is used; a mythical allegory with an indirect recreation of the myth of the journey to hell, with an ethical confrontation between good and evil, or with a spiritual ascension to transcendent knowledge.