This paper examines the light and dark realities that are brought out behind the text of Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness."

Throughout his narrative in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Charlie Marlow characterizes events, ideas, and locations that he encounters in terms of light or darkness. Embedded in Marlow's parlance is an ongoing metaphor equating light with knowledge and civility and darkness with mystery and savagery. When he begins his narrative, Marlow equates light and, therefore, civility, with reality, believing it to be a tangible expression of man's natural state. Similarly, Marlow uses darkness to depict …

…is a better idea for society to be in a constant mirage, as a replacement for a moral lecture from Marlow himself. Conrad believes, as he shows us through the character of Marlow, that society is better off without knowing the darkness that envelopes it. Marlow, finishing his story comments again on how society is a pit of darkness, and how the light and white part of civilization is, in fact, a cloak of darkness.