Heart of Darkness Essay: Savage Cultures
Conrad effectively evokes a dream like image of the jungle by using language. He uses strong words to describe the natives appearances, characteristics and presumed behavior.
Very common in his descriptions are the use of very strong and erotic words like "wild " and "intense". For example the description of a boat load of natives paddling down stream is distinctly primitive. He says "they shouted, and sang… their bodies streamed with perspiration; they had grotesque masks…but they had bone, muscle, a wild vitality and intense energy of movement…"(78). In contrast a comparison, to the author’s description of a white, affluent, suggestively desirable race, made them appear artificial, sloppy and lethargic. Clearly seen in the following phrase, "flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly"(81).
Another obvious implication of a primitive and savage culture using language, which gives the reader the illusion of wilderness, is the author's use of the word cannibals. By using the word cannibal the author implies a savage and uncivilized race, since both the word and the act are abrasive. Especially in context with the period this text was written in, 1910. Back then, the idea of natives in the jungle was a proven fact not a rumor or fantasy.
Already afraid of this reality the use of the word made the image of the native more frightening and convoluted. Whereas today, cannibals are hardly threatening at all since the likelihood of their existence is purely fiction. Ironically, Conrad is able to combine the use of this word with a very tender and humorous description of his crew, "Fine fellows - cannibals-in their place. They were men one could work with…And, after all, they did not eat each other before my face: they brought along a provision of hippo-meat"(104).
A last description of a native is of Marlow’s companion the "savage who was fireman"(106). He too was described to imbue the image of a savage as society had presupposed a native would look like. Marlow describes his native physical traits, beginning with a description of his teeth. He said " -and he had filed teeth, too, the poor devil, and the wool of his pate shaved into queer patterns, and three ornamental scars on each of his cheeks.
all men should be educated and have the ability to read so that they might learn
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Conrad’s main character Marlow is the narrator for most of the story in Heart of Darkness. He is presented as a well-intentioned person, and along his travels he is shocked by the cruelties that he sees inflicted on the native people. Though he is seemingly benevolent and kindly, Marlow shows the racism and ignorance of Conrad and in fact of the majority of white people in his era, in a more subtle way. Marlow uses words to describe the blacks that, though generally accepted in his time, were slanderous and crude. He recalls that some of the first natives he saw in the Congo looked at him “with that complete, deathlike indifference of unhappy savages” (80; part 1). Marlow casually refers to the Africans with the most offensive of language: “Strings of dusty niggers arrived and departed…” (83; part 1). To Marlow, and thus to Conrad, the Africans are savages, dogs, devils, and criminals. Even the stories that Conrad creates for Marlow to narrate are twisted and false. The natives that Marlow deals with in the book are described as cannibals, and they are even given dialogue that affirms th...
Every society has it’s own cultural traditions and norms. Many of the traditions are passed down from generation to generation for so long that they become the norms of the culture. The Wari’ are no different than anyone else in that their traditions become cultural norms. In Consuming Grief: Compassionate Cannibalism in an Amazonian Society, Beth A. Conklin travels to the Wari’ people in order to study illness and death from both before and after they had foreign contact. While there she finds herself going into depth on the lifestyle of the Wari’ people and how their norm of cannibalism came about and how it was phased out by the outside world.
The Heart of Darkness, a complex text was written by Joseph Conrad around the 19th century, when Europeans were colonizing Africa for wealth and power and were attempting to spread their culture and religion in Africa. It was also a period in which women were not allowed to participate in worldly affairs. Therefore, the text deals with issues such as racism, European imperialism, and misogyny. This essay will look at the different themes in the novel and argue whether or not The Heart of Darkness is a work of art.
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Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness takes place in the late 19th century at the height of colonialism in Europe and tells the tale of an experienced sailor named Marlow, who is hired as a riverboat captain for a Belgian company in the Congo and is responsible for collecting ivory and transporting it back to Europe. The contemporary film adaptation of the novel, Apocalypse Now (1979), directed by Francis Ford Coppola, is set during the peak of the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War in 1970. Captain Willard, played by Martin Sheen, goes on a journey upriver to find and assassinate Colonel Kurtz, played by Marlon Brando, with “extreme prejudice”. Louis K. Greiff, in “Conrad’s Ethics and the Margins of Apocalypse Now,” claims that Coppola
Heart of Darkness describes a voyage to Africa, common for the British still, despite the horrific treatment which was apparent of colonization. The chaotic, stream-of-consciousness style Conrad took on helped to display the confusion, and made the reader have to interpret for themselves what they thought the writer meant. Conrad experiments with this style, leaving some sentences without ending: "not a sentimental pretense but an idea;…something you can set up…and offer a sacrifice to…." (Conrad, Longman p. 2195), a very choppy form of literature and causes the reader to fill in the holes and interpret themselves, alone. Conrad skips about from talking of the "two women knitted black wool feverishly" at the gate of the city (of hell), to his aunt which he feels women are "out of touch with truth," to how the British are as "weak-eyed devil(s) of a rapacious and pitiless folly" (Conrad, Longman pp. 2198, 2199, & 2202). Conrad's mind moves about as ours do along a large duration of literary monologue to convey to the reader the author's ideas, as interpreted by the reader.
Achebe argues that the racist observed in the Heart of Darkness is expressed due to the western psychology or as Achebe states “desire,” this being to show Africa as an antithesis to Europe. He first states Conrad as “one of the great stylists of modern fiction.” [pg.1] He praises Conrad’s talents in writing but believes Conrad’s obvious racism has not been addressed. He later describes in more detail that Conrad’s “methods amount to no more than a steady, ponderous, fake-ritualistic repetition of two antithetical sentences.”
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Despite the opinion of certain critics, Conrad did not create Marlow to be a prejudice character. One of his first Marlow?s first Reactions to the villagers is the exact opposite, ?They were not enemies they were not criminals??(Conrad, 189) While his initial response may not seem altogether accepting, it is far beyond the understanding of his peers. As the story continues Marlow is slightly sarcastic in his understanding of the villagers, ?Fine fellows-Cannibals-in their place. They were men one could work with, and I am grateful to them. And, after all, they did not eat each other before my face? (189)? Marlow shows his ability to be sarcastic in the face of popular criticism, even making the mold step to refer to these African?s as ?Fine Fellows?(189), ?They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of they humanity-like yours-the thought of your remote kinship with this wild??(189) Although the natives...
The Enron Corporation was an American energy company that provided natural gas, electricity, and communications to its customers both wholesale and retail globally and in the northwestern United States (Ferrell, et al, 2013). Top executives, prestigious law firms, trusted accounting firms, the largest banks in the finance industry, the board of directors, and other high powered people, all played a part in the biggest most popular scandal that shook the faith of the American people in big business and the stock market with the demise of one of the top Fortune 500 companies that made billions of dollars through illegal and unethical gains (Ferrell, et al, 2013). Many shareholders, employees, and investors lost their entire life savings, investments,
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The notion of what it means to be human has been explored through various literature and interpreted in many different ways. Through an intricate series of events and circumstances as well as man's perception of superiority, Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness reveals challenging issues of imperialism and colonialism and there devastating effects on society. As the novel's title implies, the "darkness" illustrated is the negative human side of brutality and discrimination. The deeper meaning and implication of being "human" is dependent on many factors including one's surroundings affecting his or her behavior and decision-making as well as man's arrogance and feeling of superiority taking ethical actions.