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Symbolism In Heart Of Darkness

1001 Words5 Pages

In the Heart of Darkness, darkness act as the picture word for the entire novel and changes its meaning throughout the novel to symbolize different meanings when the story progresses. There are multiple meaning of darkness shown in the novel Heart of Darkness such as darkness in the action through colonization and the excuse of civilization, darkness in the character, physical appearance, ignorance and the native who were kept in darkness. In the novel Heart of Darkness, we can see darkness is portrayed in colonization. The Europeans after Colonization treated the natives brutally and inhumanly. The natives were treated like an animal and they were dumped inside the pit to die and were also chained like criminals. The phrase “Anything-anything can be done in this country” (Conrad, 2001, p.52) shows how the Colonizers exploited the land of the natives and killed them without mercy because there is no law which would control the colonist’s dark heart. Darkness signifies the corrupted minds of the Europeans in the name of civilization. “Civilization is a mask used to hide the truth” (Example essays, 2002) which means, the Europeans invaded Africa by telling the natives they came to civilize the country but in reality they came to Africa mainly to extract ivory from the natives. Civilization is the mirror to human nature because we can seeour physical appearance when we look in the mirror and civilization also shows how cultured and developed we are, but like mirror it does not

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