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Analysis of conrad's heart of darkness
Analysis of conrad's heart of darkness
Major themes of conrad's heart of darkness
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In the novel, “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad there are many themes that are explored, but none more so than the hollowness of civilization. In the novel, Marlow travels to the unnamed city where a European company interested in the richness Africa has to offer has its headquarters. He describes the city as a "white sepulcher." A sepulcher is a beautiful tomb, which on the surface is looking strong and magnificent but hides inside only the dead. The white sepulchral city symbolizes civilization. The beautiful white outside suggests the justifications that Europeans use to justify colonization, while the hidden hollow inside of the sepulcher represents the hypocrisy of the European people, and desire for power and wealth that truly motivate the colonial powers. This essay will explore …show more content…
In the “Heart of Darkness”, the hollowness of civilization is directly reflected in the hypocrisy of the entire colonial effort. In Europe, colonization of Africa was justified on the grounds that it would also civilize the ‘savage’ African natives. In an effort to civilize Africa, it revealed the truth nature of civilization, as all their ‘teachings’ towards the natives were hollow. At the beginning of the novel we get a glimpse of what the narrator’s thoughts on colonialism is. "What greatness had not floated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth! ...The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empire." (Conrad, 17) He views colonialism as something to be marveled at. He believed men went away with dreams and money to build empires in England’s honor and cure savagery where ever they may find it. But Marlow has seen what truly happens and takes the opposite view: he sees England itself as one of the savage places, and imagines how that savagery changed its conquerors. "And this also," Marlow says suddenly, "has been one of the dark places of the earth."
Cesaire and Conrad both have different methods and rhetoric to criticize colonization. Cesaire is more direct with his critiques. In contrast, Conrad is more reserved with ideas and his thoughts. Conrad attracts the reader into Marlow’s world where the experiences of Marlow and his thoughts, which are never direct, are where one can distinguish his critiques of colonialism. John Reed’s articles are descriptive and allows the reader to have a vivid picture of the reality that is present in the war.
In the novel, Heart of Darkness, Kurtz’s greed and maliciousness consume his actions and take over his body. Since Kurtz gains authority from his copious amounts of Ivory, he becomes arrogant and abuses his power. He murders groups of natives and hangs their heads on stakes to show his control which instills a sense of self validation. Sarcastically, Marlow states, “evidently the appetite for more ivory had got the better of the-what shall I say?-less material aspirations”(Conrad 86). He displays his cruelty by placing material wealth like Ivory above human lives. This obsession eats him alive, and slowly, he becomes his treasure. His body deteriorates, and Marlow “saw on that ivory face the expression of sombre pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror. . .”(105). He becomes a reflection of his greed which leaves him “hollow at the core” with no moral compass(87). In the beginning, the setting takes place in an ironic town called Brussels. Conrad alludes to a book in the Bible and states, “I arrived in a city that always makes me think of a whited sepulchre. Prejudice no doubt”( 13). In the Bible, a whited sepulchre represents the burial site for the deceased and also represents a hypocrite. As the bodies rot underground and the bones take their place, the sepulchre serves as a comparison to the hidden impurity and sinfulness throughout Western civilization. The inside holds the truth while the outside
The novel merely portrays a fictional account of British imperialism in the African jungle, where fiction offers maximum entertainment it lacks in focus. The novel is not a critique of European colonialism and imperialism, but rather a presentation of colonialism and the theme of darkness throughout the novel sheds a negative light on the selfishness of humanity and the system that was taking advantage of the native peoples. In Joseph Conrad’s novel, Heart of Darkness, Conrad presents a criticism of British imperial colonization not for the purpose of taking sides, but with aims of bettering the system that was in place during Conrad’s experience in the African Congo. Conrad uses the character of Marlow and his original justification of imperialism so long as it was efficient and unselfish that was later transformed when the reality of colonialism displayed the selfishness of man, to show that colonialism throughout history displaces the needs of the mother country over the colonized peoples and is thus always selfish. Understanding the ideology, practices, and repercussions of imperialism is paramount to interpreting Conrad’s’ viewpoint of imperialism and the colonial experience.... ...
Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness shows the disparity between the European ideal of civilization and the reality of it, displayed by the domination, torture, exploitation and dehumanization of the African people. Conrad often emphasizes the idea of what is civilized versus what is primitive or savage. While reading the novel, the reader can picture how savage the Europeans seem. They are cruel and devious towards the very people they are supposed to be helping.
In Conrad's Heart of Darkness Marlow, the main character, symbolizes the positiveness of Imperialism. Marlow, as a character realizes the evil that negative Imperialism has caused and decides it is truly unnecessary. When Marlow states, "I had got a heavenly mission to civilize you," he expresses his good intentions to help the Africans progress and advance. Furthermore, when he says, "I was an impostor," Marlow recognizes the fact that he is an invader into a foreign land, yet he sticks to his moral values.
In Romanticism and Colonialism, Tim Fulford and Peter J. Kitson argue that few scholars explicate the relationship between Romantic texts, British colonialism, and imperialism. Fulford and Kitson point out that the "Romantic period is a watershed in colonial history," marking the inception of a British empire based on the political philosophy of the "white man's burden" (3). By reading Romantic texts in the historical and political context of colonialism and imperialism, Fulford and Kitson hope to return Romantic texts "to the context of material, colonial processes contemporaneous with their imagined versions of colonized people and places" (9). In other words, Fulford and Kitson read Romantic texts as reflections of historical reality and as complex, ambivalent responses to colonial and imperial discourse. With the aim of returning Romantic texts to "material, colonial processes," I will read Byron's poem "Darkness" through the lens of Julia Kristeva's conception of abjection. My abject reading of "Darkness" will then explicate the relationship between the poem and the larger process of British colonialism and imperialism. I will first read "Darkness" for instances of abjection through the lens of Julia Kristeva's 1982 essay, "Approaching Abjection." I will then conclude by addressing the question of how an abject reading of "Darkness" helps to elucidate the complex interplay between Romanticism and British colonial and imperial discourse.
Apart from the discernable darkness depicted in England and Belgium, and the Congo, each places’ surface traits are not comparable. The civilized European cities are portrayed as refined, but also as a “whited supulchre,” with “prejudice no doubt” and a desire to “make no end of coin by trade” (Conrad 14). The term “whited supulchre” is a biblical allusion, referring to a person who is superficially pure, but categorically deceptive. In its literal sense, a supulchre is a coffin, and in being whited, it is beautiful on the outside but contains horrors on the inside. This bleak and inhumane place characterizes itself to be civilized, and there in lies the people who willingly welcome the burden of edifying the unfortunates in Africa. Alternatively, the primitive life along the African Congo strikes a glaring disparity to pristine European society. Not only are the riverbanks “rotting with mud” and “thickened with slime,” but also, a “general sense of vague and oppressive wonder” sets a sinister tone to the land and people of the Congo (Conrad 11). The notable absence of description of its inhabitants furthers Africa’s and Africans’ depiction as indistinguishable and incoherent to the European perception. Actual people living in this environ...
Firstly, the theme of hypocrisy is integrated in both works for the purpose of portraying man’s staggering and absurd potential for evil. In the novel, Heart of Darkness, the Europeans state that their objectives in Africa are to trade with the natives and immerse them with the light of civilization. However, their actions fail to reflect their stated motives since the Europeans take the ivory from the natives by force and they treat them inhumanely. Not to mention that the Europeans constantly refer to natives as objects such as machinery as well as suppress and eradicate them at any opportunity. Ultimately, the Europeans utilize their false words as a civilized veneer that masks their capability of being evil and savage.
Tenets of this theory that can be acted upon in interpreting text are questioning the system of values that support imperialism, questioning how imperialist colonizing powers are expanding, and focusing on victims of racism, military expansion, and exploitation. (Bertens, Hans) The text “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad was placed back in colonial times. The text is about a man who learns the truth about colonization and what the colonizing powers were really up to. A man named Marlow goes on a journey from England to Africa to find another man named Kurt, whom the colonizing powers (also known as the company) assume is being held captive by the natives and/or probably dead. Marlow discovers that the company did not actually send him and the ship’s crew out there to look for Kurt, but to steal ivory. When he finally reaches Kurt he soon discovers that Kurt has sided with the natives and the more Marlow learns about the company, the more he agrees with Kurt. (Conrad,
“ 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.
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.
Through several examples, Conrad often shows the pointlessness and savagery of the English colonization in Africa. Probably the first instance of this is when Marlow comes up to the French-man who is "shelling the bush". In this scene, the French see something move and so they start shelling it for that reason. The shelling really does no good; if fact, it probably does not even kill what is out there. This represents what the English are doing in a way -- they are trying to conquer a land by shelling it to death and by trying to kill all the people who live there. The next example that Conrad gives is when he sees the black guard, who is leading the black slaves in a chain gang, straighten up when he sees a white man. What this shows is how everyone tries to look better than they are when they are in front of a supposed superior person. Also it shows that if a person can suck up enough -- and sometimes betray their own people -- they can move up in the world.
One interpretation of Marlow's relationship to colonialism is that he does not support it. Conrad writes, "They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now,-nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom" (p. 27-28). Marlow says this and is stressing that the so-called "savages", or Africans, are being treated and punished like they are criminals or enemies when in fact they never did anything. He observes the slow torture of these people and is disgusted with it. Marlow feels sympathy for the black people being slaved around by the Europeans but doesn't do anything to change it because that is the way things are. One can see the sympathy by the way that he gives a starving black man one of his biscuits. "To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire, with no moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe" (p. 54). This statement by Marlow conveys that he doesn't believe that the Europeans have a right to be stripping Africa of its riches. He views the Jungles of Africa as almost it's own living, breathing monster.
The "Heart of Darkness," written by Joseph Conrad in 1899 as a short story, is about two men who face their own identities as what they consider to be civilized Europeans and the struggle to not to abandon their themselves and their morality once they venture into the "darkness." The use of "darkness" is in the book's title and in throughout the story and takes on a number of meanings that are not easily understood until the story progresses. As you read the story you realize that the meaning of "darkness" is not something that is constant but changes depending on the context it used.
Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness portrays an image of Africa that is dark and inhuman. Not only does he describe the actual, physical continent of Africa as "so hopeless and so dark, so impenetrable to human thought, so pitiless to human weakness" (Conrad 94), as though the continent could neither breed nor support any true human life, but he also manages to depict Africans as though they are not worthy of the respect commonly due to the white man. At one point the main character, Marlow, describes one of the paths he follows: "Can't say I saw any road or any upkeep, unless the body of a middle-aged negro, with a bullet-hole in the forehead, upon which I absolutely stumbled three miles farther on, may be considered as a permanent improvement" (48). Conrad's description of Africa and Africans served to misinform the Western world, and went uncontested for many years.