The Importance Of Silence In Joseph Conrad's Heart Of Darkness

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In the beginning of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the protagonist name Marlow is accompanied by his fellow sailors on a boat on the Thames River. On the boat, Marlow begins his tale of his journey into the Congo and its eerie wilderness. Silence is the state or condition when nothing is audible; absence of all sound or noise; complete quietness or stillness; noiselessness. It is sometimes personified. Throughout the novel, the word silence appears thirty-seven times in total. The jungle is described over and over as silent; we envision a jungle to be the complete opposite. Silence is used efficiently as an instrument of symbolism for discomfort and uneasiness in Heart of Darkness.
In Heart of Darkness, when Marlow starts to tell his story, the narrator says: “His remark did not seem at all surprising. It was just like Marlow. It was
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Conrad uses repetition to describe the scenery of the Congo as “silent” for most of the novel. He went from a place considered to be civil to a land where he has now come face to face with little to no sound. There are sounds in the Congo that Marlow is able to find relief in and there are also sounds which creates fear for him as well. Conrad uses irony through Marlow as he describes the jungle as “impenetrable” or unable to pass through yet Marlow and his men are there for this “fantastic invasion”. In Heart of Darkness, Marlow is exposed to a new world of utter silence when he journeys into the African Congo. He finds that the silence that is revealed to him is actually anything but soundless. Silence frequently generates fear for Marlow, which was seen by his inability to comprehend the land and as a result had difficulty in describing the landscape. According to Marlow, silence can be depicted as pleasing and familiar but also intimidating and

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