IB Language Arts
Period 6
Written Task Two
The Heart of Darkness is a novella written by Joseph Conrad. In this book the main character, Marlow, ventures up the Nile River to find a man named Kurtz. As he continues his journey up river he experiences a vast range of emotions and situations that are putting him to the test to see if he can keep his sanity. One of the situations he encounters are the natives of the Congo. At first they are seen as the primitive savage-like people that live in the darkness of Congo. Their way of life seems so out of the norm that there is no way that Marlow could ever understand or feel equal with them. As his journey continues to find Kurtz, he starts to understand their way of life and figure out the meanings of darkness. In the heart of darkness, Joseph Conrad uses the narrator, Marlow, to portray the evolution of mind on how the idea of darkness is a misconception, and by the end of the novella, the once “primitive savages” are in reality Marlow’s equals. In the beginning of the voyage up the river Marlow’s mindset on the natives is more of, they live an uncivilized life, killing their own people. Marlow thinks his way of life is more civilized. Eating with forks, wearing shoes. But what Marlow doesn’t see is the point of view of the natives. He doesn’t take into consideration of their definition of norm, their definition of civilized. Marlow thinks that his way is the only right way. The natives are civilized in their own way. The way they were brought up and the way they live. Later on in the journey Marlow’s traditional views of imperialists starts to fade, the people that don’t see the conquered natives as humans. “It was unearthly, and the men were-No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of it-this suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled, and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity-like yours- the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly. Yes, it was ugly enough; but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself that there was in you just the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspicion of there being a meaning in it which you-you so remote from the night of fist ages-could comprehend” He starts to develop a tiny kinship with the natives. He starts to understand their screams. Marlow develops a place in his mind that understands where they are coming from and that everyone has some barbarian inside them. Its natural and it is normal. At the end of the journey Marlow doesn’t consider the natives his equal. He views them more as animals or pets. That you can teach them but and they can learn the meaning but not the significance. Essentially it’s like a parent trying to get their kid to stay in bed by telling them there is a monster under it. They will learn commands but they will not reach the full level of sophistication that he has.
You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
Heart of Darkness is a novella written by Conrad, a parallel of the very experiences that Conrad has gone through and ultimately a look at human nature at its lowest and cruelest form. The book centers around Marlow, an introspective sailor, and his journey up the Congo River to meet Kurtz, reputed to be an idealistic man of great abilities, as if he was a deity. Ultimately Kurtz’s mental collapse and subsequent monstrosities culminate into a tragic anti-climatic death in which Kurtz utters the dying words “The horror! The horror!” His dying words seem to reflect Kurtz own feelings and realizations of his very being, his demise and his regret for the circumstances of his situation.…
- 893 Words
- 4 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
There is a lacking sense of morality in the second section of the novel. The manager and his uncle plot how to hang Kurtz and/is his Russian assistant. As they further progress into the congo “The heart of darkness” Marlow notices that the crew begins to change behaviors. They go from the civilized state of mind gradually into a more barbaric one. This leads to the idea that as the English some into the country and try to change them to be more sophisticated they are instead reverted back to natural tendencies themselves.…
- 448 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
In the beginning Marlow is remembering what it may have been like to be a young Roman conqueror exploring through the jungle. He would have had to deal with “…cold, fog, tempests, disease, exile, and death...” Marlow mentions how the soldier would have had a “fascination of the abomination” . Later in the book this same fascination overcame Kurtz after his long time in the Congo, “he hates sometimes the idea of being taken away” . Even when Marlow finds Kurtz, he can’t “break the spell – the heavy mute spell of the wilderness – that seemed to draw him to its pitiless breast by the awakening of forgotten and brutal instincts”…
- 615 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
In this quote, when Marlow was traveling, he notices a bunch of people were chained up. He notices they look like slaves. He knew they were labors, by seeing them locked up together. The first thought that came up to his mind, was they are enemies. He had a picture in a mind that these people…
- 365 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
The iniquity of the hearts of men precipitates the moral and social depravity of the entire population. In Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, Marlow finds that barbarism and savagery are universal among nations, and that the common man is able to be influenced by the slightest of impulses. The distinctive evil that roams Europe soon pervades newly discovered Africa and allows the darkness to fill the land. The European colonizers brought not only civilization and enlightenment to the land of the Congo, but also savagery and utter corruption. Throughout his journey, Marlow learns of the darkness of human kind, their hearts, and their minds through…
- 765 Words
- 4 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
After setting foot on the land and beginning his journey to the Inner Station, Marlow observes a group of slaves, from which a particular one stands out in his decimated clothing and deprived appearance. Marlow, in vain, offers the slave a biscuit immediately before they die of hunger right before his eyes (28). This simple encounter echoes the irrefutable damages caused by imperialism and the idea that no matter what anyone does to try and reverse the effects, including Europeans themselves, the damage that has been done has been set in stone for centuries to come. As noted in Edward Said’s essay critiquing Heart of Darkness, “Conrad… could clearly see… imperialism was pure dominance, [but] he could not conclude that imperialism had to end so that natives could lead lives free of European domination” (Said par. 18). This quote unequivocally supports the notion that Europe became a necessary crutch for Africa, and provides evidence for the transformation of darkness to convey the idea of the long-lasting effects of…
- 994 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
In the book Heart of Darkness there are several aspects to imperialism. As Marlow travels from the Outer Station to the Central Station and finally up the river to the Inner Station, he encounters scenes of torture, cruelty, and near-slavery. At the very least, the incidental scenery of the book offers a harsh picture of colonial enterprise. The impetus behind Marlow's adventures, too, has to do with the hypocrisy inherent in the rhetoric used to justify imperialism. The men who work for the Company describe what they do as "trade," and their treatment of native Africans is part of a benevolent project of "civilization." Kurtz, on the other hand, is open about the fact that he does not trade but rather takes ivory by force, and he describes his own treatment of the natives with the words "suppression" and "extermination": he does not hide the fact that he rules through violence and intimidation. His perverse honesty leads to his downfall, as his success threatens to expose the evil practices behind European activity in Africa. However, for Marlow as much as for Kurtz or for the Company, Africans in this book are mostly objects: Marlow refers to his helmsman as a piece of machinery, and Kurtz's African mistress is at best a piece of statuary. It can be argued that Heart of Darkness participates in an oppression of nonwhites that is much more sinister and much harder to remedy than the open abuses of Kurtz or the Company's men."Everything belonged…
- 681 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
He wanted to fill out the dark spots on the map that no one has explored before. Through his journey to Africa and his experience there was where he discovered the unfortunate side of Imperialism. Throughout his journey through Africa he witnesses the how unlawful and atrocious Imperialism is. He witnesses many things such as prisoners that were chained to one another, starving Africans, witnessed a handful of dying natives, and he also witnessed beheaded african heads on poles. He witnessed all the negative sides to Imperialism and how gruesome it was. Marlow states, “Just as though I had got a heavenly mission to civilize you” (Conrad 7). This portrays ideas from the White Man’s Burden where Marlow believed that it was his duty to conquer and educate the conquered. He believed that his race was superior and that it was his duty as the superior race to educate and civilize the barbaric natives. However his naivete came to an end as he spent more time in Africa. The more time he spent in Africa the more he realized how cruel they were being to the natives that were living there. He witnesses more and more cruel acts of the White abusing their powers and harming the natives and treating them crudely. It slowly came to his realization that what they were doing wasn’t right and that he didn’t want to believe in this form of…
- 947 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
He explains how innocently people make racial comments against the other races, and still regard themselves as none racists. He further informs the reader about men who are known to be friendly but make innocent comments and in the end concludes that their comments renders them “open to the accusation” (Bissoondath, p. 84) thereby making them vulnerable to be considered as racists. In the same manner, Conrad’s use of racial inhumane words through Marlow renders his work sensitive to racial accusations. The Europeans cruelty was seen on the way they overworked the natives, mistreated them, gave them neither food nor proper medical care and left them to die. Marlow mercilessly describes a pair as bundles, “two more bundles of acute angles sat with their legs drawn up […]” (Conrad, p. 28) a position that could be seen as defensive or a way in which they used to keep warm. Marlow also calls one of them a “creature that arose to his hands and knees and went off on all-fours toward the river […]” (Conrad, p. 28). The natives are overworked and underfed and have grown weak to support their human posture. Just because the particular native was unable to walk himself to the river does not guarantee Marlow the right to call him a creature. Also through Marlow’s eyes, they are also seen as shapes when Conrad describes them as “black shapes […], moribund shapes […] that crouched […], clinging to the earth, half coming out, half effaced […]”(Conrad, p. 28). Marlow himself witnessed how miserable and at a point of death this natives were, and having being led to an unknown land, all they could do was to defend their lifeless body from any further attack. It is completely unethical for Marlow to also describe them as “raw matter” (Conrad, p. 25) and their leader as “one of the reclaimed, the product of […]” (Conrad, p. 25) or does it seem correct for him to call them “strings of dusty niggers…
- 830 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
In Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness, the geographical surrounding shape the psychological and moral traits in Kurtz, one of the characters of the novel. Especially because it shows the savagery, and lawless environment of the uncivilized lands, which allows Kurtz to almost forget all the European ways, and it also illuminates the work as a whole by bringing the question of what would happen to us if we were to be taken from a civilized world to an uncivilized world.…
- 260 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
The aim of this paper is to analyse the role of destiny in Conrad’s criticism of colonialism. We will avail ourselves of the two knitting women to explore the relationship between Marlow and destiny and, thus, discover the philosophical ideas through which Conrad achieves his purpose.…
- 2108 Words
- 9 Pages
Powerful Essays -
In this excerpt from the novel, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, the author effectively portrays the Congo River as an inhospitable location unfit for human existence. Through Conrad’s diction, syntax and detail of the environment, the author reveals a great deal of psychological stress, due to the hostile environment, which leads to physical anguish.…
- 543 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
IN the Novel Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, Marlow’s Journey down the Congo River can be construed to be metaphoric of many different readings including a psychoanalytical interpretation, a mythical interpretation or a Historical reading. The psychoanalytical approach sees Marlow’s Journey to be a journey into the human psyche and inner consciousness as he goes further down the river. In creating this sense, Conrad has used religious symbols, a more dream-like setting further into his journey and the characterisation of Kurtz. The Mythical approach interprets Marlow’s journey as a reverse romance in which Marlow is on a quest for the truth or in other words Kurtz. Conrad uses inversion…
- 1082 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
Before Marlow leaves to go to the Congo, he visits his aunt who introduces him to the company through powerful connections. The aunt believes that imperialism is for “weaning those ignorant millions from their horrid ways” (Conrad 17). Imperialists justify greed as civilizing savages through exploration, but the aunt remains unsuspecting about the truth of the company’s motives. Her news reflect the general belief in civilized superiority, while Marlow understands “how out of touch with the truth women are” (Conrad 18). Conrad demonstrates the defense that hides the truth from the general people, portrayed by the aunt, which establishes Marlow’s protectiveness over women for their inability to handle the truth. Marlow indicates knowledge of the hidden motives by hinting “that the company was run for profit” (Conrad 17), which establishes the Marlow’s understanding of human greed. The aunt represents the ignorance of society, as she affirms the charitable pursuit of imperialists to civilize the natives and ignores Marlow’s hint of the truth. At this moment of his anecdote, Marlow pertains no moral obligations to others, only seeking an adventure into the wilderness and “lose [himself] in all the glories of exploration” (Conrad 9). He does not try to explain his aunt about the actual purpose, keeping her under the veil of civilization from the truth. Intentionally omitting the truth…
- 1498 Words
- 6 Pages
Better Essays -
The corrupting influence of power is firstly noticed by Marlow, when he sees the way the pilgrims act with the natives. The brutalities he encounters are not quite the image he imagines. He soon gets used to seeing these unpleasant situations. Marlow is able to see through the materialistic ideals that had plagued the men before him. Marlow has the open-mindedness and sensitivity that was absent during Imperialism, but doesn't have the courage or power to stop the abuses that were ongoing. Marlow realizes that the European’s perception of civilization is actually artificial. It is a mask created because of the fear that their evil deeds might become public and that this “civilization” is actually imperialism. In the beginning Marlow is determined to find justice, but his desire to do good grows increasingly futile when he sees a world where there’s no such thing as absolute goodness. Later in the novel it is obvious that He can no longer distinguish good from evil. The author uses black and white repeatedly to describe good and evil. Although the "invaders" are white, Marlow describes them as having black souls, while the oppressed blacks are described as having pure and white souls. An example for the absurdity and evil of the pilgrims compared with the pure souls of the natives is the scene where Marlow notices how the pilgrims decided to throw a dead body overboard while the savages distress a proper burial.…
- 589 Words
- 3 Pages
Satisfactory Essays