Heart of Darkness Study Guide

What happens to each one of these characters (or groups) throughout the course of the story?  Some of your answers will be really short, and some will be long (Marlow and Kurtz).

The men Marlow is telling the story to in London:

Marlow:

Kurtz:

The Russian:

Chief Accountant:

Kurtz’s African Mistress:

Kurtz’s Intended:

What essential questions are raised by each of the following lenses (schools of criticism)?  Consider the role of the reader (YOU) and the role of the writer (CONRAD).  Relate the questions specifically to the text.

Reader Response (text/reader relationshipà how this creates meaning, context):

Feminism (Man, Woman, Patriarchy, Women’s Creativity, Definer, Defined):

Post Colonial (Ethnocentrism, Foreign, Exotic, Colonial, power, otherness, othering, dual identity):

Psychoanalytic (Id, Ego, Superego, Freud, Subconscious, Preconscious, Conscious, Repress, Iceberg model):

·         Which lens do you think most obviously lends itself to Heart of Darkness?

·         What overall meaning do you take away from this novella?  What truths about humanity are presented by the novel?

·         How does changing the setting of the story (Apocalypse Now) change the meaning of the story?