WTII Heart of Darkness
Aidan McMurray 3/22/14
Word Count: 918
Period 1, Mr. Katz
Heart of Darkness: Representation of the Congolese
Prompt: How and why is a social group represented in a particular way?
In Heart of Darkness, the Congolese are portrayed as savages, primitive and animalistic, and the Congo is represented as the antithesis of Europe. Conrad doesn’t comprehend them on either an individual or cultural level; he cannot identify with their language, their world-view, or their history. He can only describe what he sees when he looks at them through the filter of a European way of ordering and interpreting the world because it’s the only frame of reference he knows, and the only knowledge he’s capable of expressing.
The following passage comes from pages 35-36 (part II) of Heart of Darkness:
“We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet. We could have fancied ourselves the first of men taking possession of an accursed inheritance, to be subdued at the cost of profound anguish and of excessive toil. But suddenly as we struggled round a bend there would be a glimpse of rush walls, of peaked grass-roofs, a burst of yells, a whirl of black limbs, a mass of hands clapping, of feet stamping, of bodies swaying, of eyes rolling under the droop of heavy and motionless foliage. The steamer toiled along slowly on the edge of a black and incomprehensible frenzy. The prehistoric man was cursing us, praying to us, welcoming us – who could tell? We were cut off from comprehension of our surroundings; we glided past like phantoms, wondering and secretly appalled, as sane men would be before an enthusiastic outbreak in a madhouse. We could not understand because we were too far and could not remember, because we were travelling in the night of first ages, of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sign – and no
Word Count: 918
Period 1, Mr. Katz
Heart of Darkness: Representation of the Congolese
Prompt: How and why is a social group represented in a particular way?
In Heart of Darkness, the Congolese are portrayed as savages, primitive and animalistic, and the Congo is represented as the antithesis of Europe. Conrad doesn’t comprehend them on either an individual or cultural level; he cannot identify with their language, their world-view, or their history. He can only describe what he sees when he looks at them through the filter of a European way of ordering and interpreting the world because it’s the only frame of reference he knows, and the only knowledge he’s capable of expressing.
The following passage comes from pages 35-36 (part II) of Heart of Darkness:
“We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet. We could have fancied ourselves the first of men taking possession of an accursed inheritance, to be subdued at the cost of profound anguish and of excessive toil. But suddenly as we struggled round a bend there would be a glimpse of rush walls, of peaked grass-roofs, a burst of yells, a whirl of black limbs, a mass of hands clapping, of feet stamping, of bodies swaying, of eyes rolling under the droop of heavy and motionless foliage. The steamer toiled along slowly on the edge of a black and incomprehensible frenzy. The prehistoric man was cursing us, praying to us, welcoming us – who could tell? We were cut off from comprehension of our surroundings; we glided past like phantoms, wondering and secretly appalled, as sane men would be before an enthusiastic outbreak in a madhouse. We could not understand because we were too far and could not remember, because we were travelling in the night of first ages, of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sign – and no