The book “Heart of Darkness” was written by Joseph Conrad, published in 1899. It is a thought-provoking, challenging, yet rewarding piece. This book discussed about Western colonialism and presented main ideas that were challenging to grasp . I had spent a relatively long time comprehending and analyzing the meaning of this novel. What shocked me was how the author Joseph Conrad, considered as one of the best English novelists, hadn't learned to speak English until his 20s.Considering his exquisite use of language, I thought of him as a native English speaker. Conrad applies his vocabulary skillfully, in a paragraph of the book, he wrote, “I looked at him, lost in astonishment. There he was before me, in motley, as through he had absconded from a troupe of mimes, enthusiastic, fabulous. His very existence was improbable, inexplicable, and altogether bewildering. He was an insoluble problem. It was inconceivable how he had existed.” The words he used in simply one section showed the solid foundation of vocabulary and reading he possesses; without the accumulation of a long period, the use of his language wouldn’t have been as fluid.

Although, at one point of the book, I was confused about the status of women in the 18th century. What raised my confusion was a description like this: “Girl! What? Did I mention a girl? Oh, she is out of it—completely. They—the women, I mean—are out of it—should be out of it. We must help them to stay in the beautiful world of their own, lest ours gets worse.” This captured my attention while reading it from the perspective of a girl. I wondered why the character claimed “we must help them to stay in the beautiful world of their own.”? Perhaps influenced by education and society, in my opinion, the equality of gender goes from their appearance to a deeper level of what they are able to endure. Nevertheless, this provoked my thoughts on the historical background at the times, raising my inquiry and controversy about what the identity of women meant in the 18th century and under the tips of the pen of Joseph Conrad. Did the author simply state the biased truth or did he hold a subjective, prejudiced view? As I read on, I realized racism was portrayed in quite a variety of ways in this piece. Not only from the portrayal of naive and ingenious women, but also the use of natives for slave labor and the practice of dehumanization and human folly.

Throughout this novel, I come to the conclusion that Conrad conveys a message about the hollowness of that era in England’s civilization. One example is when the narrator replaces the names of the characters with the name of their jobs or ranks and when the uncle mentions how “acting in a civilized way is an act that is designed to avoid punishment”. The citizens get lost in the search for money, fame and power, drawing them into the pernicious tentacles of corruption. The tyrannical tendencies and hypocrisy of imperialism result in the madness, contradiction, racism, the absurdness of evil, and the darkness of the heart.