Theme Of Ignorance In Joseph Conrad's Heart Of Darkness

"’Cause I’m black…"(Steinbeck ch.4). This is the only time that we see crooks discussing how everyone on the ranch degrades him and discriminates him. Crooks is so oppressed by the society that he lives in, that he starts to opress himself and he seems to be depressed. Crooks never talks back to any of the ranch workers when they call him racial slurs to his face. Crooks either has a strong will to keep working here, or, he knows that he has no other choice than to go out alone and starve.

Simultaneously, Victor failing to take responsibility for his own creation leads the creature down a path of destruction that manufactures his status as a societal outcast. The creature's dissolution from society, his search for someone to share his life with, the familiarity with intense anguish, his thirst for retribution, each of these traits coincide with Victor as he is depicted throughout the novel. Victor unknowingly induces his own undoing through his rejection of the creature. Shelley foreshadows his downfall by stating that “the monster still protested his innate goodness, blaming Victor’s rejection and man’s unkindness as the source of his evil” (Shelley 62) The creature essentially places Victor at fault for the creature becoming an outcast of society, by expressing this Shelley constructs a very austere portrayal of man’s contact with outsiders. Virginia Brackett asserts in her analysis of the novel that “Due to the monster's rejection by the cottagers and other humans, Victor serves not only as his creator but also as the only social construct on which he can build his reality” As the creator of the creature, Victor adopted the responsibility of his creation and the duties that accompany it, however, instead of answering the call of duty he fled and disregarded his obligation to the creature.

Therefore, he was made evil by the way he was treated. The saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover” it quite true in this case. The monster was not born evil. He tried over and over again to get people to see past his ugliness and into his heart but no one could see it. This changed the monster into a sad and lonely monster with nothing to live for.

Their lack of control and and their lack of obedience for rules brings them to savagery and loss of innocence, leading to the tragic deaths of a few of their own. William Golding uses symbolism, similes, and repetition to brilliantly and powerfully illustrate loss of civilization and innocence in the novel. Using these literary devices, Golding makes the read much more descriptive and meaningful. The novel really shows the darkness deep inside every man, and under the right conditions, this darkness can arise, resulting in a loss of innocence and civilization. Golding’s uses of symbolism, similes, and repetition help convey that theme even

The patterns of trust and subsequent betrayal found in the Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, serve to teach lessons about what it was like for African Americans in post-slavery America, when the book is set. The Invisible Man trusts easily and naively. Yet, despite working hard, he is betrayed by the institutions and people he looks up to as role models as they exploit his expectations for their own agenda. Overall, there are four strong examples of those taking advantage and hurting the Invisible Man. With each incident, he learns a lesson about how blatantly the black population is disregarded, along with being given an object that represents the underlying racism found in a society.

“Human” despises her though, and says that she didn’t care for anyone but the humans. Symbolism also displays the divide in opinions. The soldiers uses the word “evil” in the same sentence as “claws” to draw emphasis to them. In the other approach, the word “hands” shows that hands could do an equal amount of evil. Lastly, Polysyndeton brought sympathy through revealing similarities between monster and man and brought the two stories together.

The creature’s experiences have shaped his opinion of himself from being a kind creature, to now seeing himself as the monster he is treated like. The creature intends to do good deeds saving a human, “and as a recompense [he] now writhed under the miserable pain of a wound,” (Shelley 61). He has the potential for both good as well as evil, since he was created from 8 different men. He has the ability to obtain good and evil and he demonstrates it throughout the story and his own experiences he shared to Frankenstein. He compares himself to a monster because he is treated as one.

At the end of the story, the reader can indicate that Ralph has lost his innocence by the quote, “Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of true, wise friend called Piggy” (Golding 261). Being under a dictatorship can demolish any kind of sanity one has. Now Ralph has realized what power and manipulation can do to one person. He never intentionally plans on becoming a savage, and unfortunately, he misses his dignity. In response, Boyd comments, “It is rather the coming of an awareness of darkness, of the evil in man’s heart that was present in the children all along” (Boyd 27).

It is crystal clear that the loneliest character in Of Mice and Men is Crooks. He was rejected to play cards, and to enter the bunkhouse, just because he is colored. He also has an unwelcoming personality that repels people from getting close to him. John Steinbeck clearly expresses loneliness primarily through Crooks than the other characters who are also considered lonely. “People think being alone makes you lonely, but I don’t think that’s true.

He describes “the white man” of not knowing him, and not knowing the conditions he had to face. He says his story is intended to “show him with words a world he would otherwise not see because of a sign and a conscience racked with guilt and to make him feel what I felt when he contemptuously called me ‘Kaffir Boy.’” (Mathabane, 3). The conditions he had to live with for eighteen years are described as cruel and disturbing. These cruel and disturbing conditions made life unbearable, so unbearable that Mark questioned if a life so rough was worth living. He tried to commit suicide because he is so miserable and he wonders if it is worth it.