Research Conrad’s biography to trace the connections to Heart of Darkness

Choose one of the following topics. 1) Research Conrad’s biography to trace the connections to Heart of Darkness. How might Conrad be using Marlow to express his own ideas? Or is Conrad distant from Marlow, not identifying with him? 2) Heart of Darkness uses terminology that we now recognize as racist. Is this a racist book? Use Chinua Achebe’s article “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness” as one of the sources. (This article is available in the Gale Resources for Literature online database. Follow the directions given in the lecture on using online databases.) 3) Trace the political history of the Congo from the time just before Conrad arrived there to modern times. How did the European presence influence the country? 4) Compare Heart of Darkness and Coppola’s movie Apocalypse Now Redux. Consider aspects such as the characterization, tone, and theme.