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Conclusion of character of kurtz in heart of darkness
Conclusion of character of kurtz in heart of darkness
The role played by Kurtz in the novel Heart of Darkness
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“No, they did not bury me, though there is a period of time which I remember mistily, with a shuddering wonder, like a passage through some inconceivable world that had no hope in it and no desire. I found myself back in the sepulchral city resenting the sight of people hurrying through the streets to filch a little money from each other, to devour their infamous cookery, to gulp their unwholesome beer, to dream their insignificant and silly dreams. They trespassed upon my thoughts. They were intruders whose knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretence, because I felt so sure they could not possibly known the things I knew. Their bearing, which was simply the bearing of commonplace individuals going about their business in the assurance of perfect safety, was offensive to me like the outrageous flaunting of folly in the face of a danger it is unable to comprehend. I had no particular desire to enlighten them, but I had some difficulty in restraining myself from laughing in their faces so full of stupid importance. I dareway I was not very well at that time. I tottered about the streets—there were various affairs to settle—grinning bitterly at perfectly respectable persons. I admit my behaviour was inexcusable, but then my temperature was seldom normal in these days. My dear aunt’s endeavours to `nurse up my strength´ seemed altogether beside the mark. It was not my strength that wanted nursing, it was my imagination that wanted soothing. I kept the bundle of papers given me by Kurtz, not knowing exactly what to do with it. His mother had died lately, watched over, as I was told, by his Intended. A clean-shaved man, with an official manner and wearing gold-rimmed spectacles, called on me one day and made me inquiries, at first circuitous, afterwards suavely pressing, about what he was pleased to denominate certain `documents´. I was not surprised, because I had had two rows with the manager on the subject out there. I had refused to give up the smallest scrap out of the package, and I took the same attitude with the spectacled man. He became darkly menacing at last and with much heat argued that the Company had the right to every bit of information about its `territories´. And said he, `Mr. Kurtz’s knowledge of unexplored regions must have been necessarily extensive and peculiar—owing to his great abilities and to the deplorable circumstances in which he had been placed: therefore--`I assured his Mr.
“It was a large, beautiful room, rich and picturesque in the soft, dim light which the maid had turned low. She went and stood at an open window and looked out upon the deep tangle of the garden below. All the mystery and witchery of the night seemed to have gathered there amid the perfumes and the dusky and tortuous outlines of flowers and foliage. She was seeking herself and finding herself in just such sweet half-darkness which met her moods. But the voices were not soothing that came to her from the darkness and the sky above and the stars. They jeered and sounded mourning notes without promise, devoid even of hope. She turned back into the room and began to walk to and fro, down its whole length, without stopping, without resting. She carried in her hands a thin handkerchief, which she tore into ribbons, rolled into a ball, and flung from her. Once she stopped, and taking off her wedding ring, flung it upon the carpet. When she saw it lying there she stamped her heel upon it, striving to crush it. But her small boot heel did not make an indenture, not a mark upon the glittering circlet.
Her family life is depicted with contradictions of order and chaos, love and animosity, conventionality and avant-garde. Although the underlying story of her father’s dark secret was troubling, it lends itself to a better understanding of the family dynamics and what was normal for her family. The author doesn’t seem to suggest that her father’s behavior was acceptable or even tolerable. However, the ending of this excerpt leaves the reader with an undeniable sense that the author felt a connection to her father even if it wasn’t one that was desirable. This is best understood with her reaction to his suicide when she states, “But his absence resonated retroactively, echoing back through all the time I knew him. Maybe it was the converse of the way amputees feel pain in a missing limb.” (pg. 399)
Accordingly, Poe is well responsive to this psychological trait of the human brain. Likewise, Poe employs the perception of perversity and remorse in “The Cask of Amontillado.” The reason of burying Fortunato is not only vengeance, but also a robust reaction that is described in “The Black Cat”. There is a passionate yearning in Montresor to hurt Fortunato even if he has not made any harm to him. Although Montresor asserts that he has been injured several times by Fortunato, he cannot defy calling him “respected, admired, beloved,” admitting his “good nature,” and also calling him “noble” (Little 212). These expressions confirmed that Fortunato is a good quality person and the expression “injuries” used in the first phase of the story is simply a hyperbole that Montresor’s psyche has fabricated. Furthermore, wickedness does not come unaccompanied, but it carries itself a sense of remorse. Even if Montresor reflects himself as the diplomat of his family for deafening down rivals, he suffers remorse while walling up Fortunato. Consequently, Poe’s clasp of unreasonableness and culpability of the human mind is
Day after day, week after week, passed away on my return to Geneva; and I could not collect the courage to recommence my work. I feared the vengeance of the disappointed fiend, yet I was unable to overcome my repugnance to the task which was enjoined me”. (Shelley
The writing style of Edgar Allan Poe shows the writer to be of a dark nature. In this story, he focuses on his fascination of being buried alive. He quotes, “To be buried alive is, beyond question, the most terrific of these [ghastly] extremes which has ever fallen to the lot of mere mortality.” page 58 paragraph 3. The dark nature is reflected in this quote, showing the supernatural side of Poe which is reflected in his writing and is also a characteristic of Romanticism. Poe uses much detail, as shown in this passage, “The face assumed the usual pinched and sunken outline. The lips were of the usual marble pallor. The eyes were lusterless. There was no warmth. Pulsation had ceased. For three days the body was preserved unburied, during which it had acquired a stony rigidity.” page 59 paragraph 2. The descriptive nature of this writing paints a vivid picture that intrigues the reader to use their imagination and visualize the scene presented in the text. This use of imagery ties with aspects of Romanticism because of the nature of the descriptions Poe uses. Describing the physical features of one who seems dead is a horrifying perspective as not many people thing about the aspects of death.
The poem begins by describing the lunatic as a man with very animal tendencies, “with starting pace” and “with wide and hollow eyes” (lines 2-3) These characteristics alone give the reader a vivid image of how this man acts, and immediately sets low expectations for his character in a social and intellectual sense. His primitivism shows as “his cold bed upon the mountain turf” (6) is mentioned, furthering the image of a wildly sav...
1. Passage: “This was the terrible cost of Richard Parker…. Something in me died then that has never come back to life.” Page 255
The passage in which this revelation occurs is interesting in its tone. While it is considered to be one of the more serious of acts and scenes, it also is one of the most comedic due to the presence of the gravediggers. The gravediggers, being a part of the com...
“There was considerable intermarriage amongst the Bathory family, with some of the usual problems of this practice produced as a result. Unfortunately, beyond the ‘usual problems’ some extraordinary difficulties arose (namely hideous psychoses) and several “evil geniuses” appeared, the notorious and sadistic Erzsebet the most prominent of them.” (Krause).
"The boundaries which divide Life and Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where one ends, and where the other begins?" Edgar Allan Poe, The Premature Burial (Bartlett, 642). To venture into the world of Edgar Allan Poe is to embark on a journey to a land filled with perversities of the mind, soul, and body. The joyless existence carved out by his writings is one of lost love, mental anguish, and the premature withering of his subjects. Poe wrote in a style that characterized the sufferings he endured throughout in his pitiful life. From the death of his parents while he was still a child, to the repeated frailty of his love life, to the neuroses of his later years, his life was a ceaseless continuum of one mind-warping tragedy after another.
The narrator fantasizes death. “So I take phosphates . . . forbidden to ‘work’ until I am well again” (pg. 1). The narrator is taken away from her
This short story revolves around a young boy's struggle to affirm and rationalize the death and insanity of an important figure in his life. The narrator arrives home to find that Father James Flynn, a confidant and informal educator of his, has just passed away, which is no surprise, for he had been paralyzed from a stroke for some time. Mr. Cotter, a friend of the family, and his uncle have much to say about the poor old priest and the narrator's relationship with him. The narrator is angered by their belief that he's not able, at his young age, to make his own decisions as to his acquaintances and he should "run about and play with young lads of his own age ..." That night, images of death haunt him; he attempts make light of the tormenting face of the deceased priest by "smiling feebly" in hopes of negating his dreadful visions. The following evening, his family visits the house of the old priest and his two caretakers, two sisters, where he lies in wake. There the narrator must try and rationalize his death and the mystery of his preceding insanity.
As a literal deathbed revelation, William Wilson begins the short story by informing the readers about the end of his own personal struggle by introducing and immediately acknowledging his guilt and inevitable death, directly foreshadowing the protagonist’s eventual downward spiral into vice. The exhortative and confession-like nature of the opening piece stems from the liberal use of the first person pronoun “I”, combined with legal and crime related jargon such as, “ crime”, “guilt”, and “victim” found on page 1. Poe infuses this meticulous word choice into the concretization of abstract ideas where the protagonist’s “virtue dropped bodily as a mantle” (Poe 1), leading him to cloak his “nakedness in triple guilt” (Poe 1). In these two examples, not only are virtue and guilt transformed into physical clothing that can be worn by the narrator, but the reader is also introduced to the protagonist’s propensity to externalize the internal, hinting at the inevitable conclusion and revelation that the second William Wilson is not truly a physical being, but the manifestation of something
Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most famous writers in the American literary world. His stories and poems are known for their gothic style and having the common theme of death. This is certainly seen in his short story “The Cask of Amontillado.” It is speculated by many that Poe suffered from the mental illness known as bipolar disorder. In a letter to James Russell Lowell, Poe said, “I am excessively slothful, and wonderfully industrious — by fits. There are epochs when any kind of mental exercise is torture, and when nothing yields me pleasure but solitary communion with the “mountains & the woods” — the “altars” of Byron. I have thus rambled and dreamed away whole months, and awake, at last, to a sort of mania for composition. Then I scribble all day, and read all night, so long as the disease endures.” In “The Cask of Amontillado” he presents two very different characters, Montresor the spiteful, revenge seeking killer, and Furtunato the impulsive, pleasure-seeking victim. The two opposing personality types in these two characters fit the mania and mixed state characteristics of those suffering with type one bipolar disorder. Poe used the characters in “The Cask of Amontillado” to express the feelings of madness he dealt with during his lifetime.
In 1564 Christopher Marlow was born in Canterbury. His father was a shoemaker, and it was only through scholarships that Marlow was able to attain his education. He attended Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he wrote Tamburlaine. According to The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Marlow wrote Dr. Faustus in the last stages of his life. Christopher Marlow only lived to be twenty-nine years old; he was killed in London during an argument over the bill at a bar (1: 970-971). This essay will discuss the aspects of plot and theme as well as explaining the purpose of the chorus in Christopher Marlow's Dr. Faustus.