Upon arriving in the colonized country and during his travels up the river he begins to see the truth about the company’s “trade” as well as the “cultivation” of the “uncivilized” inhabitants and culminates his enlightenment during his encounter with Kurtz. Conrad’s descriptions of the cruelties he encountered, albeit as a backdrop more than the main subject matter, point out that imperialism, contrary to popular belief at that time, was not a noble endeavor to civilize savage people but rather it was simply a horrific display of exploitation and man’s cruelty to man. Joseph Conrad’s novella contrasted the European’s view of imperialism as a noble, principled pursuit to bring culture to an uncivilized world with the stark reality that is was materialistic and evil in nature. Marlow begins his journey as a business man, going on a business trip. He slowly discovers through his observations that “business” in the Congo and his ideas of how his own “civilized” world is actually the savage one.
The books Heart of Darkness and Blood River both show connotations of physically and emotionally challenging dangers that they are faced with during their journey through Africa. Heart of Darkness is a work of fictions, whereas Blood River is a work of non-fiction that describes Butcher’s journey through the Congo. Blood River’s primary purpose is to entertain however its secondary purpose is to inform and Heart of Darkness’s purpose is to entertain; however shows subtle hints of a secondary purpose of informing. Heart of Darkness presents a war like environment and Conrad employs a lower register in comparison to the rest of the text, to convey the fact that the narrator is in a dangerous situation; this is seen in the use of the minor exclamatory, ‘Arrows, by Jove!’ and the simple sentence ‘We were being shot at!’. This shows that the narrator is in shock and there for his use of language is less considered than in other parts of the narrative where a higher register has been employed.
In the novel, many subsequent lines of inquiry conclude that the early official estimates were essentially correct: roughly half the population of the Congo perished during the Free State period. The efforts of King Leopold II of Belgium to make the Congo into a colonial empire include a complex scheme of political intrigue, corruption and propaganda. He wins the assistance of public opinion and of powerful states. Through the Berlin Conference and other diplomatic efforts, he finally obtains international recognition for his colony. He then establishes a system of forced labor that keeps the people of the Congo in a condition of slavery for ivory and rubber.
The conch, Jack’s knife and Piggy’s glasses are such symbols representing Golding’s perception of the Second World War through metaphoric figures. Golding emphasizes through the symbols in this novel the clash of good and evil and his point of view that every person as part of the nature of being human has a bad side that thrives to take over that of the good. Symbolism in “Lord of the Flies” is better applied to reality through Golding’s use of characterization. On the island the conch represents the law and order of the British society the boy’s had come from. The conch is governing authority, keeping those desperate for power under law and giving one the opportunity to speak ones mind as only the person holding the conch is permitted to speak, “Let him have the conch!” shouts Piggy.
How does Joseph Conrad portray nature in Part II of Heart of Darkness? Nature is portrayed throughout Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness as a force combatting the white man’s imperialistic ambitions and dominates the imagery and thematic concerns throughout the novella. Part Two of the book gives vivid descriptions of the Congo’s natural envczironment through Marlow’s narrative as he travels in the repaired steamer downriver deeper into the African continent towards the Inner Station and Kurtz himself. In the middle chapter of the book, nature plays a key role in setting the scene and providing a backdrop to Western imperialism. Conrad creates this image through his portrayal of the environment as an extremely foreboding and overbearing setting, a disease spreading force hostile to colonisation and as the precursor to civilization.
In this essay I shall attempt to provoke a topic that has always rendered me very curious. There is this story that whenever reading it I feel like I never read it before, but rather heard about from an interesting teller. It is a novella which is entitled Heart of Darkness, and which is one of Europe's famous stories. Heart of Darkness is a novella written by a guy named Joseph Conrad, a Polish writer who described and magnificently the impacts of colonialism in the heart of "dark Africa"; the Congo. However, the problem to some is that Conrad's record of what went on in that place was perceived from the eyes of a European, who─and here I am referring to Conrad has betrayed his true nature of fulfilling his meant task as an ethical recorder-writer.
Both societies are described impressionistically – the jungle is a “mournful and senseless delusion”, while the East is said to have a certain “quality of distortion”. It is clear in both that the societies are not being described objectively or factually; instead, Nick and Marlow invest their own judgments into the descriptions. In the valley of ashes, for instance, details are figurative and based heavily on Nick’s impressions of the underlying grotesqueness: “ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air”. Nick conveys a similar impression of spiritual emptiness when he describes Myrtle’s apartment as having “a small living-room, a small dining-room, a small bedroom, and a bath. The living-room was crowded to the doors…” – the repetition of the word “small” and the use of “crowded” hints at the feebleness of this setting in holding Myrtle’s dreams of grandeur.
Europe, Africa, the river, and Kurtz are all plausible candidates for the heart of darkness within Joseph Conrad’s Heart Of Darkness. Marlow may refer to Europe when mentioning the heart of darkness for numerous reasons. The European governments and trade organizations have been the primary reasons for the infiltration and development of Africa. The Europeans have been the ones to enslave the African people and bring misery upon them. Marlow encounters much of this misery when first being introduced to the Chief Accountant of the Trade Company.
In this novelette Conrad bravely exposes the horror at the heart of Europe, the absurdity of Europe’s civilizing quest in Africa, and perhaps prophetically points to the rise and eventual fall of the European Superman, Neitzche’s man with the will to power, Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler. The tale is told by a European, not one whom History might show as pathologically averse to genuine self-analysis when it comes to foreign atrocity, but by a character who is looking inward, morally and spiritually at Europe, an Eastern embodiment, a Buddha figure. The novelette starts at the entrance to the Thames, an almost mythic place, as Conrad notes. This estuary had “known and served all the men of whom the nation is proud, from Sir Francis Drake to Sir John Franklin, knights all, titled and untitled – the great knights-errant of the sea. It had borne all the ships whose names are like jewels flashing in the night of time, from the Golden Hind returning with the round flanks full of treasure… The dreams of men the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empires.” But this eulogistic optimism is countered by a pessimistic note by
This paper attempt to record the subaltern sensibilities and concerns noticed in Aravind Adiga’s Booker Prize winning novel The White Tiger that has derived much acclaim and criticism alike. In this debut novel, Aravind Adiga takes on some hefty issues: the unhappy division of social classes into haves and have-nots, the cultural imperialism of the First World, the anger that seethes among the world's dispossessed, the avarice of the Indian elite among whom bribes are commonplace, and the caprice of those who perpetuate a system in which many are sacrificed to the whims of a few. The White Tiger 'says a lot' about contemporary India. A brutal view of India's class struggles is cunningly presented by Adiga. The riveting, razor-sharp debut novel explores with wit and insight the realities of these two India – “…Men with Big Bellies, and Men with Small Bellies” - and reveals what happens when the inhabitants of one collude and then collide with those of the other.