Heart of Darkness
In Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness it is the white invaders, who are, almost without exception, embodiments of blindness, selfishness, and cruelty. Even in the cognitive domain, where such positive phrases as to enlighten, for instance, are conventionally opposed to negative ones such as to be in the dark, the traditional expectations are reversed. In Kurtz's dark sketch painting of a woman, as we have seen, "the effect of the torch light on the face was sinister." (55) The destruction set upon the Congo by Europeans led to the cry of Kurtz's last words, "The horror! The horror!" (137) The horror in Heart of Darkness has been represented in a different aspects of a variety of situations in the book. However, Kurtz's last words "The horror! The horror!" (137) are intended to underline three major aspects of this horror. One of these aspects are the horror of Kurtz's own in capacity for self-restraint, the second situation represents the colonizers' greed for ivory does to them, and the third is the Europe's darkness, its deep ignorance of the moral dimensions of its expansion. Kurtz comes to the Congo with noble intentions. He thought that "each
He embraces, loathes, and condemns all of it. Though, a pretense of civilization is preserved by the expedient of maintaining illusions, every person involved in the colonization of in Africa is to blame for the horror which took place within. It was not worthy that at one stage Kurtz was treated like a divine creator; his powers were immense until he grotesquely abused them. [ivory] station should stand like a beacon on the road", (65-66) offering a better way of life to the natives. Kurtz's negative moral judgment of all this applies supremely to his own soul, but his final insight is all encompassing: looking upon humanity in full awareness of his own shame, he projects his own debasement, failure, and hatred universally. Much of which they are sacrificing is even their own - property, way of life, health, even life it self. So much of their own substance is given to the effort of obtaining the ivory that the need for ivory becomes an obsession rather than the occupation in which it was intended to be. However, he did not really, explain the meaning of his words to Marlow before his exit. A painting described early in Hear of darkness suggests the predicament of Kurtz: that he has blindly traveled into the a situation and has become absorbed in, it as the woman is a absorbed into the darkness of the painting. " (111); unable to be totally beast and never able to be fully human, he alternates between trying to return to the jungle and recalling in grotesque terms his former idealism. The colonizers enslaved the natives to do their bidding; the cruelty practiced on the black workers was a consequence of the white man's mad and greedy rush for ivory, Kurtz "had patted him on the head, and behold, it was like a ball-an ivory ball; it had caressed him, and - lo! - he had withered; it had taken him, loved him, embraced him, got into his veins, conceivable ceremonies of some devilish initiation. By then, he has realized that all he had been taught to believe in, to operate from, was a mass of horror and greed standardized by the colonizers. He has been exposed to desire, yet he can neither comprehend nor control it. He has lost all restraint in himself and has lived off the land like an animal. "The message means more to Marlow and Conrad's readers than it does to Kurtz.
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Acceptance Essays
