Horror is repulsive, it expresses loathing and disgust . It is climatic in the sense that it represents the climax of terror. An appropriate example is the discovery of a house with a human farm in its basement, which simultaneously represents the second group of cannibals as a social group, the organized ones. Father and son found naked people “huddled against the back wall” (110), one distorted and burnt. “Help us, they whispered.
During the time of early colonization of Africa the invading white colonists would kill or destroy the male population and would rape and integrate the female population. Europeans did this because they wanted to eliminate the threat of the male population rebelling and then make the female population dependent on the male white
In Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad created the feeling of ‘other’ with the way the people Marlow encountered on the journey were described. Words are what leads a reader to form an opinion and Conrad leads his reader’s into believing the natives are wicked. In the novel, Joseph often times calls the African people savages or creatures, “...deathlike indifference of unhappy savages” (20) and “...one of these creatures rose to his hands and knees...” Savages and creatures give the connotation that they were evil and animalistic. His words impact on how we think of the African characters. In the description of the women with Mr. Kurtz, she was “savage and superb, Wild eyed and magnificent” (81).
Heart of Darkness is a novella about colonialism, about darkness and light, and about the modifications that arise inside one person while being away from its traditional society. The colonizers were expected to treat the Africans as slaves, to live among them, to make from the massive, dark forest their home. It altered one’s way of being by treating the other with such contempt and even the darkness of forest strikes against the colonizer’s honorable intentions and personality traits by turning the white men into savages. This novella unlike the others of its time stresses about the altered ego instead of the changes happened in the colonized territory. As the novella is based on contrasts, the two characters are also desplayed on the one hand, having distinctions and on the other hand, being similar.
Civilization and Savagery in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness Heart of Darkness portrays the differences between the civilized Europeans and the “savages” of which they were tasked to bring into civilization. Marlow recounts a tale of his experiences as a captain of a river-steamboat for a Company that trades ivory. He retells the story of his predecessor, Fresleven, a Dane, characterized as being told of being “the gentlest, quietest creature that ever walked on two legs.” Fresleven dies in a scuffle with the natives due to an argument regarding two black hens. This is the first image shown by Conrad that depicts the madness displayed by Europeans who venture into the “heart of darkness”. At the Company’s headquarters, Marlow meets a doctor who “… in the interests of science, to measure the crania of those going out there” and admits later on that the changes happen inside.
As well he reflects the role of the imperialism of the colonials in the exploitation of Africans for their own interests rather than to enlighten the natives ' that they claimed for. It is worth noting to reveal the story of Heart of Darkness before proceeding to the responses of the critics of the novella. Heart of Darkness is a story of a white man travelled to Africa depth of Congo. He narrates what he has seen throughout his journey to the company station where Kurtz is working. Marlow accidently with the help of his aunt finds an opportunity to replace a captain killed as a result of fighting with the local tribes in Congo.
Marlow tells his shipmates on the boat (the Nelly) that the natives passed him “within six inches, without a glance, with that complete, deathlike indifference of unhappy savages” (16). Marlow’s story of his experience exhibits how the Europeans captured the natives and forced them to work; to strip their home land of its resources and natural beauty. When the Europeans colonize Africa, they do not want to help the African people, but exploit them and put them to work for their own desire of obtaining ivory, rubber, and other resources and goods. As the Europeans imperialize the area, they do not build culture or assist in development of the Congo region, but break down culture as they enslave the natives and take away their rights, along with stripping the area of resources and natural, earthly beauty, which is conveyed through the cruel physical treatment towards the natives. This treatment is also presented through the literary devices that Conrad decides to use to reveal the experiences of the natives to the
Why The Slave Trade Should Be Abolished. Introduction: My Dearest Friends, I am here today to exterminate the slave trade and I urge that you listen to my plead. I know of nothing worse than the absolute destruction and end to innocent African lives just because we think of them as a lower race. What have they done to deserve this? They are equal to us as we are to each other and thousands and thousands are being ripped from their own land.
Another set of Westerners persecute the indigenous tribes by torturing them and making them suffer. The profiteers from the West plunder the Amazonian land for rubber, wood, gold and other resources. Their relentless invasion into the jungle is driving the Machiguengas off their traditional land. The tribal people are also exploited and made to work under inhuman conditions in the process of rubber production and mining. The final act of atrocity is that the tribal people are turned against one another.
In the beginning of the novel, the theme of darkness is shown in a variety of ways. Darkness is shown through how the Congo River/forest is defined by many people and darkness is also shown through the native people of the Congo. The Congo River/forest is seen as a place of darkness through the overgrown vegetation and through the overgrown trees. The Congo illustrates no places of sunshine nor happiness. Overall, the Congo almost seems as if it is