Introduction Joseph Conrad used a combination of metaphors and symbols in his best short novel, “The Heart of Darkness”, to engross and intrigue his readers from its beginning till its conclusion (1995). As the title implies, Conrad used ‘darkness’ to portray the people involved, the nature around them, their ulterior motives, and the symbolic darkness takes different connotations that are not easily understood until the story progresses. The story, written in 1899, is about the struggle of two civilized Europeans, Marlow, and Kurtz after they ventured into the ‘darkness’ of uncivilized Africa. Conrad’s poetic language paints images in the reader’s mind, and the metaphors are deployed to animate these images and breathe life into them. The clever use of language and imagery are clear reflections of his linguistic acumen. “Heart of Darkness” is one of the excellent examples of Conrad’s ability to manipulate abstract language and vivid imagery to attain his goal to enthrall his readers. The main ideas The main ideas in the story are interspersed with myth, imagery, complex irony, and symbols to intrigue his readers. Heart of Darkness contemplates darkness, predominant in men’s hearts, and what they become after they leave civilization, through the characterization of Kurtz, an unscrupulous ivory trader in the dark African Congo. The cruelty of the human mind, which is capable of “anything,” is cleverly established with the statement “because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future” (Conrad 1995. p.63). The artistic triads of poetry, painting, and music inherent in Conrad come to the fore from the narration of Kurtz’s painting “representing a woman draped and blindfolded carrying a lighted torch. The background was somber—almost black. The movement of the woman was stately, and the effect of the torchlight on the face was sinister.” (ibid p.79). Conrad uses the conceptual symbol of darkness as evil, debauchery, despondency, and ignorance and also use it for differentiating it with light, the source of strength, radiance, and wisdom. Symbolism in the novel The ‘Heart of Darkness’ is replete with symbolism, from the beginning till the end, and Conrad uses nature to symbolize every situation in the story. The narrator Marlow, through whom the story is delivered, is symbolized as an ‘idol’, a preaching Buddha (p.16) and his companion felt meditative and fit for ‘nothing but placid staring. For them the evening sky “without a speck, was a benign immensity of unstained light” and “in its curved and imperceptible fall, the sun sank low” (ibid p.16). To Marlow “light came out of this rive (river Thames) since—you say, Knights? Yes; but it is like a running blaze on a plain, like a flash of lightning in the clouds. … But darkness was here yesterday.”(ibid p.19) This symbolic reference to Roman aggression to England is comparable with the colonizer’s present effort to plunder Africa. Comprehensive use of myth to forewarn Marlow is expressed through the symbols of two women, knitting black wool on his first entering the Company’s office, in the ‘white sepulchered city’, to take up his new assignment. The phrase “whited sepulcher” derived from the Bible implies