The Quest for Truth in the Heart of DarknessConrad's Heart of Darkness is set in the Congo region of Africa, and his descriptions of that place are stark but full of wonders of discovery. as well as the shock caused by the discovery of ugly truths. Conrad was intentionally vague in his setting for Heart of Darkness; he never actually named the destination Marlow traveled to. Perhaps this is because Heart of Darkness was more of an inner journey than a journey between locations. Conrad juxtaposed his protagonist's inner quest with an outer journey through the wilderness of "dark" Africa. The climax of the novel consisted not of actions, but of moral discoveries and intellectual awakenings. A stylistic device used by Conrad throughout the novel is the highlighting of themes by contrasting certain symbolic elements with contrasting symbolic elements. To achieve this, he relied heavily on metaphors. Metaphors gain meaning only when they are associated in the reader's mind with images or ideas that go beyond the intrinsic meaning of the words themselves (Searl 1979). In reference to the title Heart of Darkness, Ian Watt said: “...Conrad's two names are densely loaded with physical and moral suggestion; freed from the restrictions of the article, they combine to generate a sense of perplexity that prepares us for something. beyond our usual expectations: if words do not name what we know, they must ask us to know what does not yet have a name” (Watt 1963). The contrast between elements, which can be depicted as light, and elements, which can be characterized as dark, resonated in Heart of Darkness. Light carries within it the metaphorical meanings...... middle of paper...... Cox, CB Conrad: Heart of Darkness, Nostromo and Under Western Eyes. London: Macmillan Education Ltd., 1987. Guetti, James. “The Heart of Darkness and the Failure of Imagination,” Sewanee Review LXXIII, No. 3 (Summer 1965), pp. 488-502. Ed. CB Cox. Ruthven, KK “The Savage God: Conrad and Lawrence”, Critical Quarterly, x, nos. 1 and 2 (spring and summer 1968), pp. 41-6. Ed. CB Cox.Street, Brian V. The Savage in Literature. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1975. Thornton, AP The Imperial Idea and Its Enemies. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985. Watts, Cedric. A preface to Conrad. Essex: Longman Group UK Limited, 1993. Wiley, Measure of Man by Paul L. Conrad. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1954. Wynne-Davies, Marion. Ed. The Bloomsbury Guide to English Literature. New York: general reference of Prentice Hall, 1990.