Thematic Multiplicity in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness

Abstract

Multiple thematicity in a literary text is an outstanding art aiming to give valuable importance to literary work. Multiple thematic structures try to maximum output through a single text. While explaining something to another person, whether in speech or writing, we try to organize what we say in a way that makes it easier for the reader to understand but more than one thematic structures of the text become hard to crack. This article aims to examine the multiple theme Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. In 'Heart of Darkness' Joseph Conrad has masterly and very skillfully intermingled various important themes. These themes are so subtly interwoven that they produce an artistic unity in the novel. These themes seem to get dissolved into each other; they have lost their separate identity in the course of the novel. Sometimes, we find it strange that such a thin book possesses so many themes like theme of evil, theme of imperialism, theme of self-restraint, theme of isolation, theme of reality and appearance, theme of exploring the sub-conscious etc. The novel is characterized as the multiplicity of theme and synthesis of unified ideas.