And Heart Of Darkness, Heart Of Darkness

Decent Essays
Roads link destinations together. They serve as paths to reach goals. In literature, roads represent the passage to freedom and truth. As roads carry people out of one location to another, they serve as freeing, escape routes. However, roads often ironically reveal the utter confinement that a character faces. By reversing the typical association of light surrounding revelations found on roads, authors show the solitary space in which each person survives. In Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, and Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey, roads lead to realities beyond the superficial truth characters see on the surface. All journeys come to a rest, and this end will always reveal a reality that used to make one …show more content…
The paths Trethewey traverses are “dense with trees and shadow” in “Genus Narcissus” (Trethewey 7). This imagery reveals that she constantly travels through darkness. No matter where she goes, the roads hold shadows and danger. In “Graveyard Blues,” Trethewey emphasizes that even the “road going home was pocked with holes” that prevent smooth travelling and reveal only artificial truths (8). Obscurity and opacity pave paths. People can only discover surface truths along their journey: truth that does not reveal reality but disguises it and forms a path to discovering it. Joseph Conrad similarly relies on roads to expose the darkness of the world around each person. In Heart of Darkness, the river acts as the road for Marlow’s travels. The river holds many “snag[s]” which hold the ability to “twist” the course of the boat (Conrad 41). While Marlow tries to stay on course, the tide works against him. The beginning and ending of Heart of Darkness, literally depict this struggle against the tide and given path. The characters wait for a turn of the tides to continue onwards. But, the tide takes its time and the character remain stuck on their path. Marlow originally believes the darkness lies in Africa only, yet he returns to Europe and finds a “street in deep shadow” (Conrad 7). Every path holds darkness. It matters not where the path lies but where it leads a person. The paths in Heart of Darkness, lead into a gloomy, dreary reality. No matter where a person travels, his path will take him straight to

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