Prompt 18

               Whether or not an individual is familiar with the novella, Heart of Darkness, one can very easily assume that the pages will transport us into a menacing place. This sinister title sets the tone for the entire short story as the readers are constantly trying to figure out what exactly the title means. However once the last page is turned we walk away with a solid grasp concerning what the title signifies.

                Very literally we can take the title and show its physical significance. The setting of the novel takes place in the center or the "heart" of Africa. Therefore the main character Marlow is in the heart of a country which happens to be shrouded in the darkness of its overgrown jungles.  The people which live in the center of Africa are also cut off from the outside world, for the most part. The native people are also stuck in the dark “caves” which Plato describes in his allegory. Ironically, their ignorance and primitively seem to affect others moral compass, much more than their own.

                On a very metaphorical level we can see that the title, Heart of Darkness holds meaning concerning sanity and morality. Throughout the storyline it is very apparent that people lose their humanity when they are surrounded by the wild. Pure hearts soon become shrouded in darkness much like the jungle is shrouded in fog. What's good is now bad and what's bad is now good. While the black individuals are considered to be savages, we can see that they may have better morals than those white individuals which come from elsewhere. The fog and the ivory are also both white but symbolize obscurity and greed. The title Heart of Darkness may use the idea of darkness (black), to symbolize the loss of humanity, but the pages inside show us that those white things, thought to be good, may be the sources of all the problems.