The Heart of Darkness; finished.

I finished the book about thirty minutes ago and the first thing I would like to point out is how difficult this book was for me. I got through it, broke it down, and understood key points but what was difficult was the vocabulary and the sentence styling. Re-reading, summarizing pages, and marking the text definately pulled me through on this one.

For this book I chose the "text-to-word" connection. I decided on this way of outlining because it's an older book, published in 1898, and I knew I would have trouble remembering all the events and understanding certain words. Every single page in my book has a summary at the end, at the top, a header. This "leaving a trail" method helped me in understanding the overall story when coming to the end of the book. I make many references throughout the book on where to find things of the like I have just read, making conections throughout, that also helped.

Now onto the fun stuff! The actual story itself! It was great. Conrad does not leave any stone unturned when describing the surroundings of the steamer. He paints a full picture in your head before getting to the important stuff. The synonyms he uses for darkness throughout his book are incredible. He sets such a dreary scene, you can't help but feel like you are in the heart of darkness yourself. The same applies for the description of the villiages and companies Marlow passes. You can tell what kind of tale it is going to be from the begining.

Mr. Kurtz still gives me the feeling of the unknown, you know what I mean? Marlow's description of him is long, and seems fulfilling enough, but at the end it feels like he is still that secret man in the forest. To touch upon the subject of the humanity of man, since we will be working on that, Mr. Kurtz portrays the symbol of humanity for man gone bad. He let the dark heart of wilderness take him in, nurture him, protect him, and turn him into a wonderful animal! He begins to lie and kill and steal, but still can hold onto that great sense of knowledge and speech he is known for.

Marlow, to me,  seems like the quiet guy who is often misunderstood. In a way he reminded me of my father. Not so much for those reasons, but for his relaxed personality. Not even a shriveled head on a stick gave Marlow much of a start. His personality was a good thing for the story. He doesn't beat around the bush. As he is telling the story you know it's coming from pure memory and heart.

I envied the young Russian man just as much as Marlow. He longed for adventure like I have never heard. It  inspired me.

The ending happened quick, but I like the last few pages when Marlow is meeting with Mr. Kurts' girlfriend. The sorrow she held, not only inside of her, but in her speech and her apartment itself, gave a strong feeling of loss. True and utter loss that the entire world will feel. It gave a good strong ending to the horrible heart of darkness.