Landscapes

This book is pretty depressing. I was having a lot of trouble reading it at first but I am starting to get used to Conrad's style. Conrad's description of the landscape so far throughout the novel strikes me. It chills me sometimes. When Marlow begins his journey he watches the coast slip by before him, "smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage, and always mute with an air of whispering, Come and find out" (20). The coast has so many different characteristics, yet it is "almost featureless," with an "aspect of monotonous grimness" (20). Conrad personifies the coast by using a series of varied actions and then juxtaposes them by calling the coast "monotonous." This gives the landscape a mysterious feeling that accompanies Marlow not knowing what to expect on his journey.

Marlow steps into the "gloomy circle of some Inferno" that he soon discovers to be "the grove of death" (27, 32). The "uninterrupted, uniform" noise of the rapids that fills the "mournful stillness of the grove" fits the scene. The people have come to die under this cluster of trees. The steady yet gloomy noise of rapids reflects the fact that these people are waiting for their inevitable deaths.

Marlow discovers that "there was no joy in the brilliance of sunshine" (60). Typically the thought of bright sunlight evokes happiness in a reader, but the excruciating brightness of the sun and the already miserable environment in which Marlow has to bear its rays make it painful. Conrad's contrast with the typical idea of sunlight grabbed my attention. Even sunlight causes sadness in the heart of darkness.