Heart Of Darkness

Joseph Conrad as a major modern writer is acknowledged as one of the great experimentalists and earliest symbolists of the 20th century's fiction. His creative works have achieved high distinction.Heart of Darkness, one of Conrad's most famous stories, has been translated into different languages. In the long past, critics have lingered on the analysis of Conrad's imperial themes, moral motifs and his writing styles. Western critics have used various critical theories such as Marxism, Freud's theory, symbolism, feminism and postcolonialism to study his works.This thesis makes an attempt to apply Bakhtin's polyphonic theory to the analysis of Heart of Darkness. The first chapter focuses on Conrad's achievements and various literay comments on this novella. The second chapter is a brief review of Bakhtin's polyphonic theory, including carnivalesque overtones, dialogism and polyphony. In Chapter Three the author of the thesis chooses "the billingsagte language", "the harlequinade", "the carnival laughter", "the carnival death scene" and "the mock crowning and decrowning" to illustrate the carnivalesque overtone in the novella. Chapter Four makes a careful analysis of the polypnonic features of Heart of Darkness. Chapter Five lists the different dialogues between different characters to demonstrate the application of dialogism in the novel. In conclusion, the author stresses the influence of Bakhtin's polyphonic theory on Joseph Conrad's studies and argues that it seems to be one of the more suitable and effective ways to interpret this story by applying this theory.