The Importance Of Power In Heart Of Darkness

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When setting up the boundaries of superior and inferior one must have a certain knowledge that the other does not have. Once that knowledge has been established you divide and conquer the opposing side by tuning them against each other. And last show that you have power and because you have this power you are the superior one. For the African people of the Congo being on the inferior side was an over looked massacre because "white racism against Africa is such a normal way of thinking its manifestation goes completely unremarked (Achebe)." The people of the Congo were stripped of all their ethical rights as human beings and treated like animals.
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The people of the Congo were at peace with their lifestyle until the white man (Europeans) came in the picture and brutally forced them to change. "Since then the whites have brought nothing but wars and misery to the Congo (16 Hochschild)." The European exploration was just a "philanthropic pretense to show off their work when in reality it was just to gain finical benefits for themselves. At first their approach to civilize the African people was peaceful until they realized the advantage they had over them. In the story the Heart of Darkness a character named Mr. Kurtz creates a pamphlet on how to control the African people he says: "We the whites, … must appear to them in the nature of supernatural beings … we can exert a power for good practically unbounded... and Exterminate all the brutes (Conrad 38)." All this means is that they will show all the ones that are willing to learn a few things to improve their lifestyle and murder all the ones that stand in the way of that because after "people fear what they do not understand and hate what they can not conqu...

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...s did not understand the African lifestyle they feared what they did not know, so they demanded that the African people adapt to their way of life. Physically the European men believed that African male could dominate them but rather then just give the upper hand to the Africans they kept it to themselves. Instead they justified their superiority by playing with the intelligence of Africans and protecting the European women. They believed “that the African men had a higher sexual drive than the white men and could pose a danger to the white women (Hochschild 210).” To turn the tables around the European men raped the African women in front of the African men making them feel emasculated because they could not protect their women. In some cases “ soldiers made young men kill or rape their own mothers and sisters (Hochschild 166).“

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