Heart of Darkness

1058 Words3 Pages

Heart of Darkness. That title rings with agony, loneliness, and the sense of evil. The words produce an image of a black heart entangled with unbreakable vines. To have a heart that is figuratively black and bounded to the ties of evil is a bitter and deathly symbol. Who could possibly have that heart? Joseph Conrad, for example, was a man with a heart of darkness. His life reeked with self deception and inner conflicts. Conrad’s book, Heart of Darkness is based upon imperialism and racism. Racism is cleverly hidden within the text, but imperialism is innocently depicted as the civilization of the Congolese people. Conrad’s writing can be interpreted two different ways. One approach is the reader might interpret his writing as an attack on the Europeans as the imperialists trying to help the Congolese, but the African people refuse their help. In contrast, the other approach might be that they feel sympathetic to the Congolese people. They see the Europeans has cruel and heartless. If we seek to understand the racism and the imperialism of that day and age, we can see racism in between the lines. I agree with many of Conrad’s critics when they say that he is completely racist, however I tend to see that no matter what race we are we all have a seed of darkness inside our hearts. Why are we infected with his powerful bug of a race overpowering any minority that is inferior to us due to any significant difference? In the case of Conrad’s book Heart of Darkness, it seems like Congolese people are nothing more than disposable and insignificant. Racism is the native differences among the various human races that determine cultural or individual achievement, usually including the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right... ... middle of paper ... ...rwell 534) Orwell felt the connection with the elephant he shot. He would have never done it if the people weren’t around him, judging him, invisibly pushing him into a corner. He would be disposed of in the natives eyes being nothing of value if he hadn’t shot the elephant. That is the conflict I want to believe Marlow or even Conrad had within his heart. However, it seems that he just continued on the path that was already paved out for him by the others that were too blind to see imperialisms lasting affects on human nature. If one is too weak to chose between what is right and what is wrong what makes him so different from the rest? When Marlow just stands by and watches and the people humiliate and dehumanize the Congolese people he is no better then Kurtz or any other colonizers. It is a constant psychological battle that involves internal and external forces.

Heart of Darkness
437 Words | 1 Pages
When questioning whether or not Joseph Conrad was an imperialist, a racist or both for that matter, the answer should be quite obvious after reading some of his works, such as, Heart of Darkness. Everywhere you look in this book, there is both imperialism and racism illustrated. Through Kurtz, Conrad's imperialist side breaks through and likewise, through Marlow Conrad's racist views come to life.
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Heart of Darkness
2215 Words | 5 Pages
1. The protagonist of Heart of Darkness is a person named Charlie Marlow. Oddly, his name only appears once in the novel. Marlow is philosophical, independent-minded, and generally skeptical of those around him. He is also a master storyteller, eloquent and able to draw his listeners into his tale. Although Marlow shares many of his fellow Europeans’ prejudices, he has seen enough of the world and enough debased white men to make him skeptical of imperialism. An example of Marlow being independent-minded and philosophical is when he takes a trip up a river, as a break from working on ships. Marlow describes the trip as a journey back in time, to a “prehistoric earth.” This remark on how he regards colonized people as primitive, which is his philosophical viewpoint.
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Heart of Darkness
525 Words | 2 Pages
Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, achieved classical recognition for its depiction of humanity’s struggle to reconcile good and evil. From the very opening pages of the Bible man has wrestled with choice, opportunity, propensity and instinct. The knowledge of good and evil has surely caused us to die to simplicity and burdened us with the curse of self-awareness. At first it was a struggle for me to get from page to page because of Conrad’s intricate details.
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Racism in The Color of Fear
892 Words | 2 Pages
Let’s start with the definition of racism. Racism refers to the belief that race is the primary determinant of human capacities, that a certain race is inherently superior or inferior to others, and/or that individuals should be treated differently based on their ascribed race.
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Heart Of Darkness
1076 Words | 3 Pages
Heart of Darkness ?gHeart of Darkness?h, written by Joseph Conrad, holds thematically a wide range of references to problems of politics, morality and social order. It was written in a period when European exploitation of Africa was at a gruesome height. Conrad uses double oblique narration. A flame narrator reports the story as told by Marlow, assigned to the command of a river steamboat scheduled to transport an exploring expedition. Kurtz is a first-agent at an important trading post of ivory, located in the interior of the Congo. Both Marlow and Kertz found the reality through their work in Africa. Marlow felt great indignation with people in the sepulchral city after his journey to the Congo region because he discovered, through his work, the reality of the universe, such as the great virtue of efficiency, the darkness in society and individuals and the surface reality. When Kurtz found himself on his deathbed and he said ?gThe horror, The horror referring to his life in inner Africa, which caused him disintegration. Marlow emphasized the virtue of ?gefficiency?h throughout the story because he thought of it as the only way to survive in the wilderness. After seeing the dying natives in the forest of the outer station, Marlow described them as ?ginefficient.?h Under ?gthe devotion to efficiency,?h incompetent people were excluded from society. Only efficient people can survive. For example, since Kurtz was the most efficient agent, with regards to producing ivory, his employers respected his achievement and regarded him as an essential person.
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Heart of Darkness
712 Words | 2 Pages
The world of women was vastly different to modern times. The unsettling truths of the view of men at this time were disconcerting “they—the women I mean—are out of it—should be out of it. We must help them to stay in that beautiful world of their own, lest ours get worse” (80). Ultimately the voice of Marlow thinks that women are naïve, delicate beings that should be sheltered from everything because they are too delicate to handle the truth. As the narrator says, “it’s queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own” ( 28). Marlow frequently says that women are the keepers of naïve illusions but their role is important, because those naïve illusions that he refers to are the basis of societal fiction. The role of women are the justification of European colonial expansion and imperialism. And in return, the women are the benefit from the wealth their men attain, and they become objects upon the shoulders of men that display them as their level of success and status. Kurtz’s Intended represents this particular role, his Intended embodies, faith and naive innocence. She only actually devotes herself to an image of Kurtz instead of the man himself. The woman’s has a sincere character and a high sense of morality. Marlow notices and describes that “she was not very young… not girlish. She had a mature capacity for fidelity, for belief, for suffering” (p. 119). Indeed she represents her culture and race she living in the realm of fiction. “A mystery; and yet the terms of light in which he speaks of it relate this quality to the idealism and faith embodied in a figure who is herself a core of light, Kurtz's Intended” (Ridley 6) She believes that she was in love with Kurtz but she didn’t even know who he re...
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The Conquest in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness
476 Words | 1 Pages
“ The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.” (Conrad 65) So stated Marlow as though this was his justification for ravaging the Congo in his search for ivory. Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness shows the disparity between the European ideal of civilization and the reality of it as is evidenced by the domination, torture, exploitation and dehumanization of the African population. Heart of Darkness is indicative of the evil and greed in humanity as personified by Kurtz and Marlow.
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The Cruelty of Colonialism in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness
1807 Words | 4 Pages
A nation of tortured slaves with bodies so emaciated one could count the ribs, death lingering in every corner as overworked natives line the ground with their lifeless forms, a people so scarred that evil men are allowed to rule as gods. Unfortunately, the gruesome description reigns true for African tribes that fell victim to the cruelty of colonialism. Pointing out the abhorrent evils of the imperial tradition, Joseph Conrad wrote Heart of Darkness to expose the possibility of malevolence in a human being. Throughout the novella, Conrad illustrates sickening images of the horrendous effects of colonizing African tribes while incorporating themes such as a reversal of black and white imagery, the “fascination of the abomination”, and the inherent evil within humanity. Uniquely, Conrad often describes good and virtuous situations or people using the commonly negative description black. Likewise, Conrad also uses the word “white” to describe negative, evil, or unfortunate events and people. Another use of theme arises as Conrad’s main narrator, Marlow, becomes fascinated with the savage people and the cruelty under which they live. Although the situations and people are described as wild, Marlow pays special attention to the details of these people because they are all human, like him. Lastly, the protagonist, Kurtz, falls into deep evils as his soul is consumed by power-hungry and greedy ambitions. Conrad often discusses the possibility of evil within every man if the environment is unrestrained and open to a dictatorship-like control. Despite the main idea of the novel being the evil within man, a native Nigerian professor, Chinua Achebe, greatly criticizes what he believes to be both obvious and subtle racist undertones through...
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Colonialism and Imperialism in Heart of Darkness
1042 Words | 3 Pages
Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" is, as Edward Said says, a story about European "acts of imperial mastery" (1503)-its methods, and the effects it has on human nature-and it is presumable that Conrad incorporates much of his own experience in the Congo and his opinions about imperialism into the story, as another recent critic also suggests: "he seems to approve of Marlow," the narrator (Achebe 1492). These revelations of the author are conveyed to the reader through Marlow's observations, descriptions, reactions, and statements. While "Heart of Darkness" is at times very critical of European imperialism, that criticism for the most part is directed at the false idealistic claims made about the enterprise and the inefficient and savage methods employed by the Belgians; the book does not question imperialism when undertaken competently, particularly by the British.
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The Meaning of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness
1353 Words | 3 Pages
Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness has a symbolic meaning behind its title like many other great works of literature. The title can actually be interpreted in many different ways. One way the title can be looked at is that it portrays how Conrad viewed the continent of Africa. It might also represent entering into a more primitive society, witnessing humans transforming from civilized to savage. Perhaps the Heart of Darkness refers to the colonialism and imperialism that the Europeans were practicing at the turn of the 20th century.
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Heart Of Darkness
540 Words | 2 Pages
Charles Marion Russell once said, “A pioneer destroys things and calls it civilization.” A man can enter a perfectly stable system and ruin it by forcing in his own ideals. He takes what works, complicates or changes it, and ends up making it worse than it once was. In Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad proves that although white Europeans view themselves as superior to the black Africans in matters of civilization, they are in fact more savage than the natives they have come to civilize.
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Heart Of Darkness Analysis
1210 Words | 3 Pages
The line between morally conscientious decisions blurs through Conrad’s use of Marlow as a vehicle for the process of reasoning through the savagery that allows him to explore the contradiction that lies beneath the accepted beliefs of the early 20th century. Evident through “Marlow’s withering condemnation of the colonial enterprise in general,” Conrad is fascinated and sickened by the lengths the European nations have taken to secure their imperialistic goals (Sewlall). These acts of degradation are committed in plain view of the rest of the world- an evil that occurs in pure daylight. The usually associated connotation of sunlight would indicate legality, purity and innocence; Conrad exposes imperialism to the core of its corruption and acts of cruelty horrifically being committed without protest from other European equals. Being a spectator to such exploitations should not rationally be plausible, however, human nature’s “fascination of the abomination” renders society helpless to disagree (Conrad 4). Regardless, humanity features nuances of both sides of the ‘good and evil’ pairing, seen through the parallel of the absolutes of light and
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Critical Analysis Of Heart Of Darkness
1413 Words | 3 Pages
“ The Marxists hate imperialism and consider it as the highest stage, the peak of capitalism and coincidently Heart of Darkness has been considered as an anti-imperialist work, so the work invites a Marxist approach in itself.” (Sardar) The natives were basically stripped of their agency and were forced under the European influence to do hard labor with the ivory. “This imperial relationship between Europe and the underdeveloped world as defined by Lenin is certainly detectable in the historical setting of Heart of Darkness.” (Sardar) They weren’t given the same opportunities as the others. “European imperialism would suggest that this is a utopia considering they can exploit the African masses for maximum gain and they believe that they bring civilization and light to a dark and savage area…” (Rodarte101litcrit 1) And this is kind of topsy turvy because Marlow dreamed of having a utopia. Now that he has met Mr. Kurtz and has seen, and personally worked with his many wonders that he so powerfully possessed, he’s convinced that what he is doing is right. Marlow was naive and hopeless, and Mr. Kurtz seemed all powerful and glorified. Yet we see through the hands of Mr. Kurtz, power is not to be dealt with people who do not know how to control
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Heart of Darkness
2838 Words | 6 Pages
Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness does not explicitly deal with a struggle between war and peace: the conflict is a psychological, moral one; however, the text’s implications that society is a thin veil over our innate savagery, the darkness at the roots of Western civilization, reveals disturbing truths about the peaceful, orderly lives we take for granted. The key to understanding Conrad’s novella lies in ascertaining the metaphorical significance of the “heart of darkness,” a search which may yield an answer as complex and obscure than any geographical, sociological or psychological solution.
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Racism in Heart of Darkness
355 Words | 1 Pages
Heart of Darkness is a story in which racism presents itself so deliberately that, for many, the dilemma of race must be tackled before anything else in the book may be dealt with. Conrad used derogatory, outdated and offensive terminology for devaluation of people’s color as savages. This use of language disturbs many readers who read this book.
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Heart of Darkness