Heart of Darkness

“We live as we dream–alone….” I would have never picked up this book, (since I heard so many bad things about it on the internet), but I had to read it for school and honestly… I did not dislike it. At the beginning, I had some difficulties getting into the novella, because Conrad is not sparing in his use of metaphors, but eventually, I got into the book. Conrad’s language is poetic and I am really impressed by his writing, especially when I consider that he started to learn English when he was twenty years old… Yes, Heart of Darkness is certainly a problematic piece of work. There are racist and discriminating elements in it. However, it was one of the first literary works that criticised colonialism. As readers of the 21th century, we have to keep in mind that Conrad did not see colonialism, imperialism and racism the same way we do today. When reading Heart of Darkness, we have to consider the historical context it was written in. We have to think critically, analyse it and discuss it properly. So, in my opinion Conrad’s novella is a central literary work when it comes to the horrors of colonialism and it should be read (alongside other works of course).