Heart Of Darkness Research Paper
While the use of old English and the constant occurrence of similar themes, such as dystopia and complete governmental control, might cause readers to skim through the pages of British novels, the underlying themes that parallel today’s issues of racial and cultural discrimination. Although modern society’s ideals on race—primarily the idea of white supremacy and the actual physical separation of races—have an extensive detailed history, they remain as one of the biggest barriers between the communication and understanding of different people. As seen in old texts, such as Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, and more modern films, like Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men and Neill Blomkamp’s District 9, the difficulty of accepting racial differences
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Within Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, there are multiple scenes illustrating the dehumanization and abuse of Africans. While the novel does not primarily focus on the British imperialism of Africa (imperialism itself remains an underlying theme), details such as the lack of names and the removal of human characteristics for the African’s Marlow encounters show the common ideal held throughout the British crew of white supremacy. Similarly, when Kurtz is discovered with the native Africans, his involvement with a black woman is seen as “an important aspect of the horror of his ‘going native’” (Hoeller 10). The fact that they kept his interaction with a native secret from his partner back home represents the fear they had of showing acceptance of a race/culture deemed as “minor”. Likewise, Cuarón successfully displays the discrimination between people of color and whites. For example, when Theo is first introduced to Kee, the only pregnant woman in the world, he is taken aback when he realizes that she is both an illegal immigrant and of color. Even though Children of Men is set in England, which one would expect to be more diverse and accepting of different races, there is a sense of xenophobic paranoia depicted through the increase in militarization of border and the cutting of contact with other countries despite the fact that the lack of conception is a national problem
Within Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, there are multiple scenes illustrating the dehumanization and abuse of Africans. While the novel does not primarily focus on the British imperialism of Africa (imperialism itself remains an underlying theme), details such as the lack of names and the removal of human characteristics for the African’s Marlow encounters show the common ideal held throughout the British crew of white supremacy. Similarly, when Kurtz is discovered with the native Africans, his involvement with a black woman is seen as “an important aspect of the horror of his ‘going native’” (Hoeller 10). The fact that they kept his interaction with a native secret from his partner back home represents the fear they had of showing acceptance of a race/culture deemed as “minor”. Likewise, Cuarón successfully displays the discrimination between people of color and whites. For example, when Theo is first introduced to Kee, the only pregnant woman in the world, he is taken aback when he realizes that she is both an illegal immigrant and of color. Even though Children of Men is set in England, which one would expect to be more diverse and accepting of different races, there is a sense of xenophobic paranoia depicted through the increase in militarization of border and the cutting of contact with other countries despite the fact that the lack of conception is a national problem