...A TWO-PAGE RESPONSE TO CONRAD’S HEART OF DARKNESS This paper seeks to give a response to Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Heart of Darkness centers on Marlow and his journey up on the Congo River to meet Kurtz, a civilizer. His quest reveals dehumanizing effects of colonialism and brutalities meted upon the people of Congo by the company’s agents and, he finally learns the truth about Kurtz, a universal genius. Colonialism, imperialism, savagery verses civilization, and racism are the most common issues explored in the book. My major appreciation of the novel lies in how Conrad presents the theme – the horrors associated with imperialism. His concrete descriptions paint various pictures that make it so real for readers to imagine and feel the pain and trauma of the natives of Congo during the era of colonialism. Imperialism is defined as the policy of forcefully extending a nation’s authority by the establishment of economic and political dominance (The Chambers Dictionary). Some textual evidence of the theme, horrors associated with imperialism, are presented below: Forthwith, the natives were made slaves by their colonial masters and were treated as savages. Marlow confirms this, ‘A slight clinking behind me made me turn my head…and all were connected together with a chain whose bights swung between them rhythmically clinking’ (p. 10). Another instance is revealed in the text by Marlow. He becomes the eye of narration for Conrad, and this process further adds to the many revelations...
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...Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. N.p.: n.p., 1899. Print. Pedot, Richard. "Heart of Darkness" De Joseph Conrad: Le Sceau De L'inhumain. Paris: Éd. Du Temps, 2003. Print. Barringer, T. J., and Tom Flynn. Colonialism and the Object: Empire, Material Culture, and the Museum. London: Routledge, 1998. Print. Said, Edward W. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Knopf, 1993. Print. Zins, H. S. Joseph Conrad and British Critics of Colonialism. Vol. 12. N.p.: n.p., 1998. Print. BBC Company. Melvyn Bragg, n.d. Radio. Phillips, Caryl, and Renée Schatteman. Conversations with Caryl Phillips. Jackson: U of Mississippi, 2009. Print. Phillips, Caryl, and Chinua Achebe. "Was Joseph Conrad Really a Racist?"Philosophia Africana 10.1 (2007): 59-66. Web. Farn, Regelind. Colonial and Postcolonial Rewritings of "Heart of Darkness": A Century of Dialogue with Joseph Conrad. N.p.: n.p., 2005. Print Goonetilleke, D.C.R.A. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness: A Routledge Study Guide. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print Linfords, Bernth, ed. Conversations with Chinua Achebe (Literary Conversations). N.p.: n.p., 1997. Print. Achebe, Chinua. "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness'" Massachusetts Review. 18. 1977. Rpt. in Heart of Darkness, An Authoritative Text, background and Sources Criticism. 1961. 3rd ed. Ed. Robert Kimbrough, London: W. W Norton and Co., 1988, pp.251-261 Achebe, Chinua. Thing Fall Apart. N.p.: n.p., 1958. Print. Singh, Francis B. "The Colonialistic Bias Aspects of...
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...LITR211 16 February 2014 Heart of Darkness Criticism Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is a novella that despite its short length constructs a tale that is as dense and complex as the undergrowth of the jungle through which the main character travels. The tale, which begins as a frame narrative on the Thames in London, chronicles Charlie Marlow’s descent from Belgium into the heart of Africa in search of Kurtz, the infamous chief of the inner station. As Marlow travels through Africa, we are treated to a wildly different view of Africa then we typically see in popular culture, with the book portraying the harsh realities of Colonialism while also creating an atmosphere of dread and horror. This atmosphere is incredibly critical to the way in which we view the story, which has been criticized both as a racist text and as the first truly critical account of Imperialism. The journey culminates at the inner station where Marlow meets the legendary Kurtz, a character so complex that critics are still analyzing his purpose in the story. Heart of Darkness, is certainly one of the most polarizing novels of the last few centuries, with critical essays singing its praises and damning its aesthetics being almost equal in sheer volume. The watershed of criticisms towards Conrad’s visionary novella burst with Chinua Achebe’s scathing write up of the story, with its famous defaming of Conrad as a “bloody racist” (Achebe 343), that ends with the suggestion that it be banned from student...
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...that all humans have. As seen throughout the history of the world, countries have been continuously fighting for control of different lands. In this way, those in power built empires, affecting thousands of lives in the process. Belgium was one of these imperialistic countries and Joseph Conrad depicted the effects of their take over in his novel. Colonialism, as shown in Heart of Darkness, “Heritage,” and “An Image of Africa,” has drastic effects on individuals that force them to alter both their presence in and their view of the world. Heart of Darkness illustrated the effects of imperialism on two main characters: Marlow and Kurtz. Marlow’s experience and awareness of the struggles in...
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...Although the content within Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is universally commended for its deep thematic concepts and skillful literary techniques, there has been a spirited argument over whether the novel is itself a discriminatory work. Due to the many contradicting aspects of racism during the 17th century and the limited information known about the personality of Conrad, the question of racism versus realism is too complex to give a definitive answer. One of the passages that appears to be intuitively racist is included in Part I: “All their meager breasts panted together, the violently dilated nostrils quivered, the eyes stared stonily up-hill. They passed me within six inches, without a glance, with that complete, deathlike indifference...
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...Aparna T.V II-MA English Dr. Swaralipi Nandi 18-09-2014 Theme of Colonialism in ‘Things Fall Apart’ Introduction : Poet and novelist Chinua Achebe was one of the most important Africanwriters. He was also considered by many to be one of the most original literary artists writing in English during his lifetime. He is best known for his novel Things Fall Apart (1958). Born Albert Chinualumogo Achebe, Chinua Achebe was raised by Christian evangelical parents in the large village Ogidi, in Igboland, Eastern Nigeria. He received an early education in English, but grew up surrounded by a complex fusion of Igbo traditions and colonial legacy. He studied literature and medicine at the University of Ibadan; after graduating, he went to work for the Nigerian Broadcasting Company in Lagos and later studied at the British Broadcasting Corporation staff school in London. During this time, Achebe was developing work as a writer. Starting in the 1950s, he was central to a new Nigerian literary movement that drew on the oral traditions of Nigeria's indigenous tribes. Although Achebe wrote in English, he attempted to incorporate Igbo vocabulary and narratives. Things Fall Apart (1958) was his first novel, and remains his best-known work. It has been translated into at least forty-five languages, and has sold eight million copies worldwide. Chinua Achebe’s “African Trilogy” : Things Fall Apart, No Longer at Ease, Arrow of God captures a society...
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...July 2011 1 Arundati Rai’s The God of Small Things – A Post- Colonial Reading Rajeev. G The adjective “post colonial” signifies the notion that the novel or be it any piece of writing for that matter, goes beyond every possible parameters of the locality, region and nation to participate in the global scenario today which is an aftermath of European colonization. The God of Small Things written in the post colonial Anglophone by Arundhati Roy does reveal a decisive post colonial condition; through its dialogues, characters and various events and instances it encompass. Ms Roy refers to the metaphor “the heart of darkness” in the novel which is a sort of ridiculous reference to Conrad’s novel the heart of darkness. She says that, “in Ayemenem, in the heart of darkness, I talk not about the White man, but about the Darkness, about what the Darkness is about.” (Frontline, August 8, 1997). The God of Small Things tells the story of one family in the town of Ayemenem in Kerala, India. The temporal setting shifts back and forth from 1969, when Rahel and Estha, a set of fraternal twins are 7 years old, to 1993, when the twins are reunited at age 31. The novel begins with Rahel returning to her childhood home in Ayemenem, India, to see her twin brother Estha, who has been sent to Ayemenem by their father. Events flash back to Rahel and Estha’s birth and the period before their mother Ammu divorced their father. Then the narrator describes the funeral of Sophie Mol...
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...Joseph Conrad's, Heart of Darkness, brings to light the heavy suppression of women’s presence and opinion in Western patriarchal times. Women are heavily absent from the bulk of the narrative, and when they do make an appearance they are identified through the powerful narrative viewpoint of the character Marlow, who constructs them in terms of the values of the dominant principles of the British gentleman. The contrast between Kurtz's intended and his mistress reveals to the contemporary reader this undeniable Victorian background - women are effectively downgraded from power and silenced by the writings confirmation of British values. "The women", Marlow declares, "are out of it". Indeed, the five women of Heart of Darkness make only brief appearances and are given only a passing mention in Marlow's narrative. His aunt, given a cameo role in the text, is supremely naïve and "out of touch with truth"; she reminds him to "wear flannel" when he is about to "set off for the center of the earth". The knitters of black wool in the company headquarters are defined by classical mythology, taking on a symbolic significance by "guarding the door of Darkness"; they are not characters in their own right. Kurtz's mistress is identified as a product of the wilderness, "like the wilderness itself", and is described in terms of natural processes, a "fecund and mysterious life". Kurtz's intended, by contrast, lives in a place of death rather than of life, darkness rather than lightness, delusion...
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...Although the novels The Poisonwood Bible, Heart of Darkness, and Things Fall Apart, written by Barbara Kingsolver, Joseph Conrad, and Chinua Achebe, respectively, have related themes, settings, and historical contexts, differing approaches to narration and description render each book highly distinct. It should be noted that some elements of setting are not shared, Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart take place during the early waves of colonialism, around the year 1900, while The Poisonwood Bible is set more than half a century later. Additionally, Things Fall Apart is set in what is now Nigeria, while both other novels occur in the Congo. However, these differences are insignificant compared to the effects of the vastly different attitudes of the narrators. Conrad’s Marlow presents a European perspective of Africa, which while...
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...An Image of Africa An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" is the published (and amended) version of the second Chancellor’s Lecture given by Chinua Achebe at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, in February 1975. The essay was included in his 1988 collection, Hopes and Impediments. The text is considered to be part of the Postcolonial critical movement, which advocates considering the viewpoints of non-Westernized nations, as well as peoples coping with the effects of colonialism. In An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Achebe accuses Joseph Conrad of being "a thoroughgoing racist" for depicting Africa as "the other world". The essay [edit] According to Achebe, Conrad refuses to bestow "human expression" on Africans, even depriving them of language. Africa itself is rendered as "a foil to Europe, as a place of negations at once remote and vaguely familiar, in comparison with which Europe's own state of spiritual grace will be manifest". Conrad, he says, portrays Africa as " 'the other world', the antithesis of Europe and therefore of civilization", which Achebe attributes to Conrad's "residue of antipathy to black people". Achebe moves beyond the text of Conrad's Heart of Darkness in advancing his argument. Achebe quotes a passage from Conrad, as Conrad recalls his first encounter with an African in his own life: A certain enormous buck nigger encountered in Haiti fixed my conception of blind, furious, unreasoning...
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...old and new, caused this flurry of colonial activity in the period after the 1870s? What is the connection between this new imperialism and Social Darwinism? What can we learn about the process and success of imperialism in Africa and Asia from Conrad’s story? Answer The European colonialism brought different changes to the domestic level in Africa and Asian regions. The period after 1870s brought imperialistic aggression in African and Asian countries alongside the diplomatic pressures, colonial conquest and military invasion especially in the regions of Africa. The domestic people faced the foreign domination and attempt of colonization. During the 1870s the Europeans succeed to under control only 10% of the African region and it was the period when Europe started to grab the African land by the 1914, around 90 percent of the African continent was under control of Europeans (The Creation, 2011). In Africa the Berlin conference played vital role in regulating colonization alongside the trade in the African regions. Similarly in the Asian region in subcontinent, the European Colonialism was established ant later on the imperialism was started in 1857 after the freedom war. The European colonialism gradually extend its control over the political powers that later on let the European regions to take control over the African and Asian Regions. After the 1870s, the European started to explore Africa with the industrial revolution that lend the European new ways to enter and new...
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...Heart of Darkness Criticism Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is a novella that despite its short length constructs a tale that is as dense and complex as the undergrowth of the jungle through which the main character travels. The tale, which begins as a frame narrative on the Thames in London, chronicles Charlie Marlow’s descent from Belgium into the heart of Africa in search of Kurtz, the infamous chief of the inner station. As Marlow travels through Africa, we are treated to a wildly different view of Africa then we typically see in popular culture, with the book portraying the harsh realities of Colonialism while also creating an atmosphere of dread and horror. This atmosphere is incredibly critical to the way in which we view the story, which has been criticized both as a racist text and as the first truly critical account of Imperialism. The journey culminates at the inner station where Marlow meets the legendary Kurtz, a character so complex that critics are still analyzing his purpose in the story. Heart of Darkness, is certainly one of the most polarizing novels of the last few centuries, with critical essays singing its praises and damning its aesthetics being almost equal in sheer volume. The watershed of criticisms towards Conrad’s visionary novella burst with Chinua Achebe’s scathing write up of the story, with its famous defaming of Conrad as a “bloody racist” (Achebe 343), that ends with the suggestion that it be banned from student book lists. Achebe’s essay...
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...nationalities and cultures due to colonialism. Imperialism connects Walcotts poems, Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ and Friel’s ‘Translations’. All three texts contain binary opposites connoting culture, which is exactly what Walcott’s “The Gorilla wrestles with the superman” represents. The ‘gorilla’ represents the black native man; strong, natural and powerful which ‘wrestles’ with the superman, in this case British colonists. The image of the ‘gorilla’ representing the black man suggests a hint of racism - gorillas are primitive and often untameable. However the image of ‘superman’ is also not all-powerful, the idea of a superman is unrealistic. This image is a binary opposite, although these two representatives are both mighty in their own right, they possess very few similarities - natural versus supernatural. Walcott struggles with his own culture, his recurrent themes focus on dichotomy of Caribbean and Western civilisation. These seemingly opposing backgrounds cause a cross-cultural identity issue. Walcott’s split ethnicity connotes a ‘wrestle’ and struggle within himself. The effects of colonisation is a theme that can be explored within ‘Heart of Darkness’ and ‘Translations’. In both texts there is a ‘wrestle’ between the colonised and colonists despite containing opposite settings. Colonisation dehumanises the colonised and colonists themselves, to a varying extent, yet there is evidence of this in a three texts. In Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’, Kurtz the protagonist was...
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...Kapilan Pushparajah ENG4U1 Mr.Karantonis April 11th 2014 Imagery of Darkness The book “Heart of Darkness” is a novel written by writer Joseph Conrad. It is about the adventurers that an ivory transporter named Charles Marlow had down the Congo river to central Africa. The novel is based on a true story, of Joseph Conrad's actual journey up the Congo River in 1900. Marlow is Joseph Conrad’s alter ego. The novel had many themes such as; racism, loneliness, colonialism, good vs evil, power and many more. In this novel, Conrad uses imagery and symbolism to reveal the implication on the traits of different characters’ personalities. They represent main character traits. Main examples of imagery and symbolism in the novel occur when; Marlow meets the accountant for the first time. Marlow was amazed by how well dressed the accountant was. Imagery and symbolism also occur when Marlow looks through his binoculars to see the heads that were facing the station house which he had initially thought were just ornaments. The heads represent how kurtz is crazy and violent due to the graphicness of the heads.The imagery and symbolism in this novel describe the personality traits of the characters very well and helps the reader make better connections with the novel and helps them understand it better. When Marlow first met the chief accountant he was amazed. He was impressed with the way that the accountant looked. He seemed to be very surprised. “When near the buildings I met a white...
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...Rider’ (2003) in tandem, the similarity in their didactic principles of the condemnation of ethnocentrism explores the impact of European imperialism upon Ibo and Maori societies. Both texts also criticise the suppression of females in the patriarchal view of the tribes, emphasizing the significance of gender recognition and together, they delineate the concerns that arise from 1900s colonialism Within Things Fall Apart (TFA), Achebe reprimands the subservience of traditional Nigerian Ibo culture through colonialism in the context of the nation’s independence in 1960. Presenting the loss of traditions resulting from imperialism, Achebe deliberately includes William Yeats’ “The Second Coming” in the epigraph to the novel as a foreshadowing of the imminent collapse of the Ibo tribe, thus immediately establishing the Greek tragedy convention. His use of proverbs where they are the “palm-oil which words are eaten” is an allegory that captures the intricacy of Ibo language, emending the European portrait of a ‘savage’ Africa which was a notion popularized at the time by Joseph Conrad’s “The Heart of Darkness” (1899). Furthermore, Achebe juxtaposes the Ibo’s “nine masked spirits who administered justice” to the European’s “corrupt court” which makes a clear view that the traditional Ibo legal system was far more egalitarian. With this driving the pitiable suicide of Okonkwo, being the personification of values of traditional Umofia, it is a “tragic anachronism” symbolising the death of...
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