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''Heart of Darkness'' (1899) is a novella〔(Heart of Darkness Novella by Conrad ) - Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed 2015-08-02〕 by Polish-British novelist Joseph Conrad, about a voyage up the Congo River into the Congo Free State, in the heart of Africa, by the story's narrator Marlow. Marlow tells his story to friends aboard a boat anchored on the River Thames, London, England. This setting provides the frame for Marlow's story of his obsession with the ivory trader Kurtz, which enables Conrad to create a parallel between London and Africa as places of darkness.〔Chinua Achebe "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's ''Heart of Darkness''" in ''The Norton Anthology of English Literature'', vol. 2 (7th edition) (2000), p. 2036.〕 Central to Conrad's work is the idea that there is little difference between so-called civilized people and those described as savages; ''Heart of Darkness'' raises important questions about imperialism and racism.〔''The Norton Anthology'', 7th edition, (2000), p. 1957.〕 Originally published as a three-part serial story in ''Blackwood's Magazine'', the novella ''Heart of Darkness'' has been variously published and translated into many languages. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked ''Heart of Darkness'' as the sixty-seventh of the hundred best novels in English of the twentieth century.〔(100 Best ), Modern Library's website. Retrieved January 12, 2010.〕 ==Composition and publication== Joseph Conrad acknowledged that ''Heart of Darkness'' was in part based on his own experiences during his travels in Africa. In 1890, at the age of 32, he was appointed by a Belgian trading company to serve as the captain of a steamer on the Congo River. Conrad, who was born in Poland and later settled in England, had eagerly anticipated the voyage, having decided to become a sailor at an early age. While sailing up the Congo river from one station to another, the captain became ill, Conrad assumed command of the boat and guided the ship to the trading company's innermost station. He reportedly became disillusioned with Imperialism, after witnessing the cruelty and corruption perpetrated by the European companies in the area. The novella's main narrator, Charles Marlow, is believed to have been based upon the author. There have been many proposed sources for the character of the antagonist, Kurtz. Georges-Antoine Klein, an agent who became ill and later died aboard Conrad's steamer, has been identified by scholars and literary critics as one basis for Kurtz. The principal figures involved in the disastrous "rear column" of the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, have also been identified as likely sources, including column leader Edmund Musgrave Barttelot, slave trader Tippu Tip and the expedition's overall leader, Welsh explorer Henry Morton Stanley.〔Hochschild, Adam: ''King Leopold's Ghost''. New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998, pp. 98; 145,〕 Adam Hochschild, in ''King Leopold's Ghost'', believes that the Belgian soldier Léon Rom is the most important influence on the character.〔Ankomah, Baffour (October 1999). "The Butcher of Congo". ''New African''.〕 When Conrad began to write the novella, eight years after returning from Africa, he drew inspiration from his travel journals.〔 In his words, ''Heart of Darkness'' is "a wild story of a journalist who becomes manager of a station in the (African) interior and makes himself worshipped by a tribe of savages. Thus described, the subject seems comic, but it isn't." The tale was first published as a three-part serial, February, March and April 1899, in ''Blackwood's Magazine'' (February 1899 was the magazine's 1000th issue: special edition). Then later, in 1902, ''Heart of Darkness'' was included in the book ''Youth: a Narrative, and Two Other Stories'' (published November 13, 1902, by William Blackwood). The volume consisted of ''Youth: a Narrative'', ''Heart of Darkness'' and ''The End of the Tether'' in that order, to loosely illustrate the three stages of life. For future editions of the book, in 1917 Conrad wrote an "Author's Note" where he discusses each of the three stories, and makes light commentary on the character Marlow—the narrator of the tales within the first two stories. He also mentions how ''Youth'' marks the first appearance of Marlow. On May 31, 1902, in a letter to William Blackwood, Conrad remarked; :''"I call your own kind self to witness'' () ''the last pages of Heart of Darkness where the interview of the man and the girl locks in—as it were—the whole 30000 words of narrative description into one suggestive view of a whole phase of life and makes of that story something quite on another plane than an anecdote of a man who went mad in the Centre of Africa."'' 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Heart of Darkness」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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