Heart Of Darkness (1372 words) Essay Example For Students

Heart Of Darkness (1372 words) Essay Heart of DarknessHeart of DarknessIn Heart of Darkness it is the white invadersfor instance, who are, almost without exception, embodiments of blindness,selfishness, and cruelty; and even in the cognitive domain, where suchpositive phrases as to enlighten, for instance, are conventionally opposedto negative ones such as to be in the dark, the traditional expectationsare reversed. In Kurtzs painting, as we have seen, the effect of thetorch light on the face was sinister (Watt 332). Ian Watt, author of Impressionism andSymbolism in Heart of Darkness, discusses about the destruction set uponthe Congo by Europeans. The destruction set upon the Congo by Europeansled to the cry of Kurtzs last words, The horror! The horror! The horrorin Heart of Darkness has been critiqued to represent different aspectsof situations in the book. However, Kurtzs last words The horror! Thehorror! refer, to me, to magnify only three major aspects. The horrormagnifies Kurtz not being able to restrain himself, the colonizers greed,and Europes darkness. Kurtz comes to the Congo with noble intentions. He thought that each ivory station should stand like a beacon light, offeringa better way of life to the natives. He was considered to be a universalgenius: he was an orator, writer, poet, musician, artist, politician,ivory producer, and chief agent of the ivory companys Inner Station. yet,he was also a hollow man, a man without basic integrity or any senseof social responsibility. Kurtz issues the feeble cry, The horror! Thehorror! and the man of vision, of poetry, the emissary of pity, and science,and progress is gone. The jungle closes round (Labrasca 290). Kurtzbeing cut off from civilization reveals his dark side. Once he enteredwithin his heart of darkness he was shielded from the light. Kurtz turnedinto a thief, murderer, raider, persecutor, and to climax all of his othershady practices, he allows himself to be worshipped as a god. E. N. Dorall,author of Conrad and Coppola: Different Centres of Darkness, explainsKurtzs loss of his identity. Daring to face the consequences of hisnature, he loses his identity; unable to be totally beast and never ableto be fully human, he alternates between trying to return to the jungleand recalling in grotesque terms his former idealism. Kurtz discovered,A voice! A voice! It rang deep to the very last. It survived his strengthto hide in the magnificent folds of eloquence the barren darkness of hisheart. But both the diabolic love and the unearthly hate of the mysteriesit had penetrated fought for the possession of that soul satiated withprimitive emotions, avid of lying, fame, of sham distinction, of all theappearances of success and power. Inevitably Kurtz collapses, his lastwords epitomizing his experience, The horror! The horror! (Dorall 306). The horror to Kurtz is about self realization;about the mistakes he committed while in Africa. The colonizers cruelty towards the nativesand their lust for ivory also is spotlighted in Kurtzs horror. The whitemen who came to the Congo professing to bring progress and light to darkestAfrica have themselves been deprived of the sanctions of their Europeansocial orders. The supposed purpose of the colonizers traveling into Africawas to civilize the natives. Instead the Europeans took the natives landaway from them by force. They burned their towns, stole their property,and enslaved them. Enveloping the horror of Kurtz is the Congo Free Stateof Leopold II, totally corrupt though to all appearances established tolast for a long time (Dorall 309). The conditions described in Heart ofDarkness reflect the horror of Kurtzs words: the chain gangs, the groveof death, the payment in brass rods, the cannibalism and the human skullson the fence posts. .u930e0b18d2ce75ae783ff11b2beb8e0d , .u930e0b18d2ce75ae783ff11b2beb8e0d .postImageUrl , .u930e0b18d2ce75ae783ff11b2beb8e0d .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u930e0b18d2ce75ae783ff11b2beb8e0d , .u930e0b18d2ce75ae783ff11b2beb8e0d:hover , .u930e0b18d2ce75ae783ff11b2beb8e0d:visited , .u930e0b18d2ce75ae783ff11b2beb8e0d:active { border:0!important; } .u930e0b18d2ce75ae783ff11b2beb8e0d .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u930e0b18d2ce75ae783ff11b2beb8e0d { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u930e0b18d2ce75ae783ff11b2beb8e0d:active , .u930e0b18d2ce75ae783ff11b2beb8e0d:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u930e0b18d2ce75ae783ff11b2beb8e0d .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u930e0b18d2ce75ae783ff11b2beb8e0d .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u930e0b18d2ce75ae783ff11b2beb8e0d .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u930e0b18d2ce75ae783ff11b2beb8e0d .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u930e0b18d2ce75ae783ff11b2beb8e0d:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u930e0b18d2ce75ae783ff11b2beb8e0d .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u930e0b18d2ce75ae783ff11b2beb8e0d .u930e0b18d2ce75ae783ff11b2beb8e0d-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u930e0b18d2ce75ae783ff11b2beb8e0d:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Media Violence EssayAfricans bound with thongs that contractedin the rain and cut to the bone, had their swollen hands beaten with riflebutts until they fell off. Chained slaves were forced to drink the whitemans defecation, hands and feet were chopped off for their rings, menwere lined up behind each other and shot with one cartridge, wounded prisonerswere eaten by maggots till they died and were then thrown to starving dogsor devoured by cannibal tribes (Meyers 100). The colonizers enslaved the natives todo their biding; the cruelty practiced on the black workers were of thewhite mans mad and greedy rush for ivory. The unredeemable horror inthe tale is the duplicity, cruelty, and venality of Europeans officialdom(Levenson 401). Civilization is only preserved by maintainingillusions. Juliet Mclauchlan, author of The Value and Significance ofHeart of Darkness, stated that every colonizer in Africa is to blame forthe horror which took place within. Kurtzs moral judgment applies supremelyto his own soul, but his final insight is all encompassing; looking uponhumanity in full awareness of his own degradation, he projects his debasement,failure, and hatred universally. Realizing that any human soul may be fascinated,held irresistible, by what it rightly hates, his stare is wide enoughto embrace the whole universe, wide and immense. embracing, condemning,loathing all the universe (Mclauchlan 384). The darkness of Africa collides with theevils of Europe upon Kurtzs last words. Kurtz realized that all he hadbeen taught to believe in, to operate from, was a mass of horror and greedstandardized by the colonizers. As you recall in Conrads Heart of Darkness,Kurtz painted a painting releasing his knowledge of the horror and whatis to come. A painting of a blindfolded woman carrying a lighted torchwas discussed in the book. The background was dark, and the effect of thetorch light on her face was sinister. The oil painting suggests the blindand stupid ivory company, fraudulently letting people believe that besidesthe ivory they were taking out of the jungle, they were, at the same time,bringing light and progress to the jungle. Kurtz, stripped away of his culture bythe greed of other Europeans, stands both literally and figuratively naked. He has lost all restraint in himself and has lived off the land like ananimal. He has been exposed to desire, yet cannot comprehend it. His horrortells us his mistakes and that of Europes. His mistakes of greed for ivory,his mistakes of lust for a mistress and his mistakes of assault on othervillages, were all established when he was cut off from civilization. WhenConrad wrote what Kurtzs last words were to be, he did not exaggerateor invent the horrors that provided the political and humanitarian basisfor his attack on colonialism. Conrads Kurtz mouths his last words, Thehorror! The horror! as a message to himself and, through Marlow, to theworld. However, he did not really explain the meaning of his words to Marlowbefore his exit. Through Marlows summary and moral reactions, we cometo realize the possibilities of the meaning rather than a definite meaning. The message means more to Marlow and the readers than it does to Kurtz,says William M. Hagen, in Heart of Darkness and the Process of ApocalypseNow. The horror to Kurtz became the nightmare between Europe and Africa. To Marlow, Kurtzs last words came through what he saw and experiencedalong the way into the Inner Station. To me, Kurtzs horror shadows everyhuman, who has some form of darkness deep within their heart, waiting tobe unleashed. The horror that has been perpetrated, the horror that descendsas judgment, either in this pitiless and empty death or in whatever dominationthere could be to come (Stewart 366). Once the horror was unleashed, therewas no way of again restraining it. .u4d7ada5afc4a5a8a73750352e4965aca , .u4d7ada5afc4a5a8a73750352e4965aca .postImageUrl , .u4d7ada5afc4a5a8a73750352e4965aca .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u4d7ada5afc4a5a8a73750352e4965aca , .u4d7ada5afc4a5a8a73750352e4965aca:hover , .u4d7ada5afc4a5a8a73750352e4965aca:visited , .u4d7ada5afc4a5a8a73750352e4965aca:active { border:0!important; } .u4d7ada5afc4a5a8a73750352e4965aca .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u4d7ada5afc4a5a8a73750352e4965aca { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u4d7ada5afc4a5a8a73750352e4965aca:active , .u4d7ada5afc4a5a8a73750352e4965aca:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u4d7ada5afc4a5a8a73750352e4965aca .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u4d7ada5afc4a5a8a73750352e4965aca .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u4d7ada5afc4a5a8a73750352e4965aca .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u4d7ada5afc4a5a8a73750352e4965aca .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u4d7ada5afc4a5a8a73750352e4965aca:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u4d7ada5afc4a5a8a73750352e4965aca .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u4d7ada5afc4a5a8a73750352e4965aca .u4d7ada5afc4a5a8a73750352e4965aca-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u4d7ada5afc4a5a8a73750352e4965aca:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Edmunds Corrugated Parts Services EssayBibliographyDorall, E. N. Heart of Darkness. By Joseph Conrad 3rd ed. Ed. RobertKimbrough. New York: Norton Critical 1988. 306, 309. LaBrasca, Robert. Heart of Darkness. By Joseph Conrad 3rd ed. Ed. Robert Kimbrough. New York: Norton Critical 1988. 290. Levenson, Michael. Heart of Darkness. By Joseph Conrad 3rd ed. Ed. Robert Kimbrough. New York: Norton Critical 1988. 401. McLauchlan, Juliet. Heart of Darkness. By Joseph Conrad 3rd ed. Ed. Robert Kimbrough. New York: Norton Critical 1988. 384. Meyers, Jeffrey. Joseph Conrad. New York:Charles Scribners Sons, 1991. Stewart, Garrett. Heart of Darkness. By Joseph Conrad 3rd ed. Ed. Robert Kimbrough. New York: Norton Critical 1988. 266. Watt, Ian. Heart of Darkness. By Joseph Conrad 3rd ed. Ed. RobertKimbrough. New York: Norton Critical 1988. 332.