In this pair of literary voyages into the inner self, Joseph Conrad has written two of the most chilling, disturbing, and noteworthy pieces of fiction of this century. Heart of Darkness , which first appeared in Blackwood's Magazine in 1902, makes a devastating comment on the corruptibility of humankind. Based on Conrad's own 1890 trip up the Congo river, the story is told by Marlow, the novelist's alter ego. It is a journey into darkness and horror - both literally, as the narrator descends into a sinister jungle landscape, and metaphorically, as he witnesses the depths of the moral depravity symbolised by the agent Kurtz.
Another voyage into the self occurs in The Secret Sharer , the tale of a young sea captain's first command as he sails into the Gulf of Siam - and into an encounter with his 'double', the Jungian shadow self of the unconscious mind.
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