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Heart of darkness critical essays
Heart of darkness critical essays
Importance of language and literature essay
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Like any true art form, literature is able to elicit intense emotion, potently address social issues, and uncover revelations about the human condition, and this is exactly what I love about it. It offers insight into important morals, human ideals and contemporary issues in society in a stimulating yet entertaining way. It goes without saying that language is a necessary vehicle to literature; English is not only important and relevant in modern life, but it is also a fascinating language that has a rich and vast vocabulary, which is why I've developed such an interest in the power and origins of language.
I feel that that studying English at university level would allow me to gain a better understanding of literature in its spatial and temporal context. Taking this course would equip me with numerous transferable skills, including effective researching, an in-depth understanding of language, a greater appreciation for literature in its historical and cultural context, critical thinking skills, and a finer command of the English language. Furthermore, I would be able to practically apply these skills after graduating, as I have great aspirations to pursue a career in book editing.
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I particularly enjoy Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness', as the author's mastery of the English language that has allowed him to write with such ambiguity and perplexity is an epitome of why I'm so fascinated by the English language. My love of literature has taken me beyond the English canon, as I take a great interest in how the magical realism employed by Latin American writers such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez in 'Chronicle of a Death Foretold' and Isabel Allende in 'The House of Spirits' endeavours to explain the natural by means of the supernatural. My enthusiasm for literature has equipped me with an ambition and commitment to English that I am eager to demonstrate in taking this
Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness uses character development and character analysis to really tell the story of European colonization. Within Conrad's characters one can find both racist and colonialist views, and it is the opinion, and the interpretation of the reader which decides what Conrad is really trying to say in his work.
Conrad, Joseph. “Heart of Darkness.” An Introduction to Literature. Ed. Barnet, et al. New York: Longman, 2000.
Watts, Cedric. 'Heart of Darkness.' The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad. Ed. J.H. Stape. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. 45-62.
English has always provided an influential and sanctuous undertone within my literate life, assuming a variety of forms that stem from beyond the requirements of academia. Countless time has been blissfully occupied writing and experimenting with my own pieces of work, from short novels to poetry and dramatic texts, and countless time has been happily spent immersing myself in eclectic pieces from the broad spectrum of literature.
Without personal access to authors, readers are left to themselves to interpret literature. This can become challenging with more difficult texts, such as Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness. Fortunately, literary audiences are not abandoned to flounder in pieces such as this; active readers may look through many different lenses to see possible meanings in a work. For example, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness may be deciphered with a post-colonial, feminist, or archetypal mindset, or analyzed with Freudian psycho-analytic theory. The latter two would effectively reveal the greater roles of Kurtz and Marlow as the id and the ego, respectively, and offer the opportunity to draw a conclusion about the work as a whole.
Conrad, Joseph. "Heart of Darkness." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams et al. 6th ed. vol. 2. New York: Norton, 1993. 1759-1817.
Conrad, Joseph, and Paul B. Armstrong. Heart of Darkness: Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Contexts, Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2006.
The World's Classics Joseph Conrad. Youth, Heart of Darkness, The End of the Tether. Edited with an introduction by Robert Kimbrough. Introduction, Notes, Glossary.
Conrad represents phenomena being filtered through the consciousness of his characters, such that subject alters object, object alters subject, and both are influenced by the context in which they appear. Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is a rich, vivid, layered, paradoxical, and problematic novella or long tale; a mixture of oblique autobiography, traveller’s yarn, adventure story, psychological odyssey, political satire, symbolic prosepoem, black comedy, spiritual melodrama, and sceptical meditation. It has proved to be ‘ahead of its times’: an exceptionally proleptic text. First published in 1899 as a serial in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, it became extensively influential during subsequent decades, and reached a zenith of critical acclaim in the period 1950–75. During the final quarter
Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness, A Case Study in Contemporary Criticism , ed. Ross C. Murfin. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989.
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness and Other Tales. Ed. Cedric Watts. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.
Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is a novella that truly deserves to be remembered for its break from traditional literature along with its historical significance. Heart of Darkness is a prime example of early modernism which sprouted in the late 19th century. Around the start of modernism, many Western writers began questioning the progress of their nations which was primarily due to imperialism. In Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad does quite an effective job of exposing the reality of Imperialism which makes it one of the first significant pieces of modernist literature. While exposing the reality of European Imperialism, Joseph Conrad uses several literary elements such as frame story, foreshadowing, and theme which makes it a novella
* Conrad, Joseph. “Heart of Darkness” in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, M.H. Abrams, general editor. (London: W.W. Norton, 1962, 2000)
Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is a great example of a Modernist novel because of its general obscurity. The language is thick and opaque. The novel is littered with words such as: inconceivable, inscrutable, gloom. Rather than defining characters in black and white terms, like good and bad, they entire novel is in different shades of gray. The unfolding of events takes the reader between many a foggy bank; the action in the book and not just the language echoes tones of gray.
The study of Literature can enrich our lives in all kinds of ways. This study is a part of our cultural heritage. Literature is a very effective way of understanding a culture of a particular time, of a particular class and of a social group.