A Freudian approach to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad is one of the greatest novelists in English literature who wrote Heart of Darkness in 1899 as a frame story. Heart of Darkness is considered to be a significant modernist work influenced by the theories of scientists such as Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein. Conrad seems to have been strongly influenced by Sigmund Freud's Theories. Freud was the first theorist to work in the field of psychoanalysis. He focused on the concept of personality development, which is one of the most important contributions he made to the theory of psychoanalysis. Moreover, he introduced the theory of Inner Consciousness (Id, Ego, and Superego), Interpretations of Dreams, Theory of Drives (Life and Death Instincts), and other theories. So, this thesis aims to discuss the story of the transformation in Marlow's personality according to Freud's perspective on personality, in which the protagonist Charlie Marlow makes a journey from innocence to experience, ultimately discovering the dark side of human nature. Keywords: Heart of Darkness, Congo, Ego, Savage, ID, and Superego