ABSTRACT
Cedric Watts discerns in Heart of Darkness a supernatural covert plot derived from the legend of Faust. In The Deceptive Text: An Introduction to Covert Plots, Watts extends the concept of plot to cover patterns of allusion and symbolism that operate at a 'supernatural' level. Watts suggests that both Christopher Marlowe's Dr Faustus and Conrad's Kurtz can be seen as Lucifer-figures. A more historically grounded discussion of the possible meanings that can be derived from Heart of Darkness in the post-colonial world is offered by Edward Said in Culture and Imperialism. More broadly, criticism of Heart of Darkness has covered most of the currently contentious areas of literary debate, from post-colonial theory and cultural criticism to feminist and gender criticism. Over a century after its first publication, Heart of Darkness, like Kate Chopin's The Awakening, has the status of a paradigmatic text.
