Fable

"Journey into a Dark Heart," like the other stories in the collection, is a fable. A fable is a narrative that is intended to convey a moral. However, unlike classical fables, this story does not include animals or inanimate objects as characters. The story does have some fantastic elements, however. To tell his tale, Høeg places actual historical figures in unrealistic situations. For example, Conrad died in 1924, but he is resurrected to play a part in this story about 1929. Conrad's role, as Joseph K., is extremely important to the fable. The moral of this story is that the Western view of colonialism in the early twentieth century was distorted, that true colonialism was much more evil than people realized. It is through Joseph K.'s background and prompting that the evils of colonialism are gradually revealed. In the beginning, he tells them that "no one has...