Heart of Darkness
Humans are all the same. We possess little individuality, and that which we portray is superficial. Everyone is motivated by all the same intentions: greed, the desire to fulfill lustful intentions, the motif that self-preservation is the only necessary means of survival. This is exceedingly evident in two characters, the station manager and narrator, in Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. While these two men are characterized to be literal opposites of one another, Conrad uses narrative techniques that include point of view, description, dialogue, and careful
" The used of this vivid description gives us an immediate distaste for the manager; we are directed to think he is an insolent moron with nothing but a blank, external shell. Conrad has misled us with his mastery of narrative techniques. Conrad uses point of view and dialogue quite effectively for the narrator. The narrator's point of view and dialogue are self-glorifying. Superficiality is everywhere and always will be. " Through Conrad's use of these narrative techniques, we are led to believe that we should think more highly of this narrator, however, this is not the case. The narrator, on the other hand, depicts himself as all-knowing, the only man in the jungle with a worthwhile purpose. The two men in this passage are given entirely different characterizations. Conrad depicts this to us with his mastery of words and description and tells us that through we all may be portrayed as different externally, we are essentially the same through all layers of out being. However, because of the techniques Conrad uses, these two apparently different men are essentially the same, one is apt to be just as stupid and empty as the other. He states, "There was nothing within him", "no external checks", "[There is] a darkness he had in his keeping. As Conrad describes the station manager, we are left with a sense of disgust for him. Conrad has the narrator speak in a degrading manner towards others to provide a sense of his own extravagant work, calling others "dumfounded idiots" and "faithless pilgrims. Conrad uses descriptive words with negative connotations such as "deplorable" "darkness" and "insolence" to depict the manager this way.
Common topics in this essay:
Joseph Conrad,
Darkness Humans,
Superficiality Conrad,
narrative techniques,
Heart Darkness,
station manager,
view dialogue,
heart darkness,
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