"We live, as we dream--alone"

          

  Joseph Conrad’s short novel, Heart of Darkness is packed with many different themes and symbols.  One prevalent theme found within the novel is the theme of isolation. Through the theme of isolation, Conrad relates the point that excessive isolation does not create a healthy human psyche.  Conrad touches on this theme in many different forms throughout Heart of Darkness.   

            One of the most noticeable elements about Heart of Darkness is Conrad’s choice of narrators and the way in which Marlow’s story is related.  At the beginning of the novel, we are introduced to the first, unnamed narrator.  For the remainder of Heart of Darkness, Marlow narrates his story about the Congo in the first person.  There is little interruption from Marlow’s story except in a few places.  Because Conrad choses two narrators, a sense of isolation is created within the reader’s own mind.  A connection between the first narrator is lost, and it then becomes uneasy when one is broken abruptly from Marlow’s story.  For example, as Marlow tries to explain the mystery of Kurtz to the sailors, he trails off, and our first narrator comes back in for the first time saying, “He was silent for a while.” (Loc .459) Eventually, Marlow’s tale begins again, but only after the reader is abruptly brought back to the present scene.  By structuring his story in this fashion, Conrad plays into the theme that it is extremely easy to lose oneself in an isolating task, and he uses the novel as his vehicle.  Although reading a novel isn’t unhealthy, Conrad wakes the reader up to the possible negative effect that extreme isolation can have. 

Marlow’s ambivalent tone in relating his story make it easier for the reader to notice his desire to feel isolated, and the effects that isolation ultimately has on Marlow.  Marlow is so completely distanced from the violence and the horrors he saw while in the Congo that he relates his story in an almost flippant way. At the end of the novel, the reader learns that Marlow has a hard time relating to people after he comes back from the Congo, which is expressed clearly when Marlow says, as he is relating to his tale, “We live, as we dream--alone…” (Loc. 465) Marlow had spent so much time alone in the Congo, which had created a warped sense of reality in his own mind.

Today, the Internet and social media isolate billions of people from the outside world.  Instead of traveling into the Congo, people isolate themselves within their technology. We discussed in class that many people believe that they are being “social” because they participate in online forums or post to Instagram, etc.  Unfortunately, these same people hide behind pseudonyms on their online forums and only post the happy things from their lives on their Instagrams.  People base their worth on the likes of their statuses.  This behavior is extremely unhealthy.  Certainly, we do benefit from certain platforms such as Goodreads in a literary sense--people can easily share their thoughts with others online--but at what cost?  Wouldn’t discussing a book over a cup of hot chocolate in a coffee shop be more enlightening?  Perhaps Conrad was on to something in discussing the harmful effects of isolation in his novel Heart of Darkness.