The impression one receives when closely reviewing portions of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness - embracing New Criticism strategies along the way - is a frank and seemingly journalistic encounter recounting utilizing Conrad's original storytelling and fictional ideas. The ideas from the narrative text must be taken at face value in order to follow New Criticism style, and with Conrad's protagonist Charlie Marlow, there is ample unity between what the character does, how he reacts, and what the story is delivering to the reader. This narrative is not necessarily to be taken in the sense of deep literary symbolism or irony; it is simply descriptive writing designed to draw the reader into the womb of the story.
             The novel is about post-colonial Africa. The reader can, if he or she chooses, make more of the narrative than the author intended, but this is true of most all literature, and in this instance, it abides by the non-specific "rules" if you will, of New Criticism formatting. Put aside the allusions to black people being evil, blacks reflecting wilderness, wildness and wickedness, as some kind of apocalyptic metaphor (albeit this novella was turned into the movie "Apocalypse Now").
             Certainly, readers are primed for the later action, and set up for their surprises and even shocks by a huge talent such as Conrad. For example before describing the cannibals that are on the steamship, Marlow's description of the Congo River - "...a mighty big river that you could see on the map" (12) - is very straightforward with no particular reason to read anything into it. And yet, a reader could be sidetracked easily into thinking Marlow is providing some foreshadowing when he goes on: the river, he states, is, to him, "...resembling an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country and its tail lost in the depths of the land" (12). As if to quell any reader into thinking this depiction ...