Woah, Nellie!

I have heard it said that a skilled writer can put the themes that will be relevant to the entirety of a text within the first few sentences. Especially good writers can do it within the first sentence. 

Today, I'll be analyzing Heart of Darkness and its themes, basing my analysis of the entire text upon the first two paragraphs of the text. Without further ado, let's get started, shall we?

"The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of
the sails, and was at rest. The flood had made, the wind was nearly
calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for it was to come
to and wait for the turn of the tide.

The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of
an interminable waterway. In the offing the sea and the sky were welded
together without a joint, and in the luminous space the tanned sails
of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red
clusters of canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of varnished sprits. A
haze rested on the low shores that ran out to sea in vanishing flatness.
The air was dark above Gravesend, and farther back still seemed
condensed into a mournful gloom, brooding motionless over the biggest,
and the greatest, town on earth."

Let's begin with the first two words of the first sentence: The Nellie. "The Nellie" is the name of a ship, and after a little bit of poking around I discovered that the name Nellie has a few different potential origins. The one that is most prevalent to us is its origin in Old German as an alternate of Eleanor. Eleanor, and by extension Nellie, means "other" or "foreign." Within the first two words, Conrad is encoding foreignness into his narrative about the Congo. 

From there, we identify the sort of boat that The Nellie is. It is identified as a "cruising yawl." A yawl is a two-masted ship, commonly used in the 1800's by fishermen. They were most common in the early 1800's, though they remained popular for quite a while. We can likely surmise that The Nellie is an older vessel rather than a newer one, and has likely seen some use in its time. The Nellie is also identified as "cruising." Cruising in the sailing sense usually means sailing for pleasure. So from this we learn that The Nellie is most likely owned by a rich man. If it were used for fishing, it would be called a fishing yawl. Instead, it is called a "cruising yawl," which indicates that its primary use is for pleasure. It is unusual for a member of the working class in the 1800's to be able to afford a boat simply for pleasure. At this point, both the overarching meta-themes of rich, old men is starting to shine through. An old ship, owned by a rich man who is likely to also be older if his ship is old. Both of these assumptions are later proven true about the occupants of the ship. 

Next, we'll look at the first sentence of the second paragraph. In case you don't feel like scrolling, it reads: "The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of

an interminable waterway." A sea-reach is the point of a river as it reaches the ocean and begins to straighten, indicating that they are near the coast. Unsurprising since they are in a boat. Yet, they describe the Thames as an "interminable waterway" or "a navigable body of water without end." This brings to our minds one of the main focuses of the book: The Congo River. The Congo is described in terms that make it feel endless, and mysterious. 

From there, we pass through several more major themes from the book. Light and Darkness: "Limunous space" and "Mournful gloom." And we see the air of European superiority made manifest in the statment of "the biggest, and the greatest, town on earth." 

A well-crafted book prepares its readers from the very start, even if they don't know it yet. All it takes to find the symbolism and meaning deep within the prose, is to take the time to look for it. 

A picture of myself and my wife from the night we got engaged. Not related, but a great photo!