Hellish Images In Heart Of Darkness

Throughout the first section of the novella, Heart of Darkness, evil or hellish images surface. The most repeated image is that of the “brooding gloom” (Conrad 1). The opening pages especially seem to stress the gloom and mournful atmosphere around the narrator. The gloom is only the first image however. After the narration is taken over by Marlow, many of his descriptions carry hellish images. One such image was that of flames. “Flames glided in the river, small green flames, red flames, white flames, pursuing, overtaking, joining, crossing each other – then separating slowly or hastily,” (5) the narrator notes. Some interpretations of hell believes it to be filled with fire, and the image of multicolored fire in the novella suggests that
Early in his narration, Marlow makes an allusion to the biblical story of Adam and Eve. He describes a river he saw as resembling a giant uncoiled snake. He was fascinated by it and tempted into taking charge of a steamboat (6). This action is similar to when the snake tempted Eve into eating the apple of knowledge. Similar to the image of the snake river, Marlow remarks that he had seen “the devil of violence, and the devil of greed, and the devil of hot desire… a flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly,” (13). These devils entice humans into committing evils, though at the same time, these devils represent the humans themselves. The flabby devil makes a return later when Marlow arrives in Central Station (17). The place is shown to be neglected as the people there wonder about. Through the reemergence of the flabby devil image, Marlow comments on the foolishness and ineffectiveness of the colonists. Marlow makes another reference to evil when he talks about his detestation of lies. He describes it as having “a taint of death, a flavor of mortality,” (23). This taint of death he sees in lies is also what he hates about the