SOURCE: Cowan, S. A. “Return to Heart of Darkness: Echoes of Conrad in Marian Engel's Bear.” Ariel: A Review of International English Literature 12, no. 4 (October 1981): 73-91.

In the following essay, Cowan analyzes similarities in setting, plot, and theme between Bear and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

In Bear, Canadian novelist Marian Engel's heroine finds her identity and learns how to live her life through an encounter with reality in the form of the wilderness. The meeting is archetypal, reminiscent of the confrontation with the “night of first ages”¹ experienced by Marlow and Kurtz in Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Although there are important differences between Engel's and Conrad's handling of this theme, the parallels in plot, setting, concepts, and symbolism in these works suggest that Engel, perhaps without being aware of it, found in Heart of Darkness an inspiration for Bear.

To begin, we should consider the nature and...