Examine the ways in which any one or more of the novelists on your course dramatise the conflict between civilisation and instinct.
             Instinct is a powerful innate voice which lies deep within us all. We are introduced to this deep calling almost immediately in the text 'Heart Of Darkness' written by novelist Joseph Conrad. We see an ambitious Marlow whose desire to see the interior of Africa overwhelms and consumes him. His inner voice is so strong that he resigns his captaincy of an ocean-going freighter in order to make himself available for the first opportunity to become Captain of a river steamer in Africa.
             However civilisation is a way of life, which utilises instinct, and like a sculpture creates a piece of art from something stagnant, primitive like. I think this is the premise behind most of Kurtz's thinking. He too was once an ambitious figure like Marlow who believed in the literal sense of Civilisation, people who regarded themselves as articulate and provided for a division of labour. Kurtz's conception now differed to that of the meek Marlow, he believed in fraternising with the natives and displaying the countenance of a civilized western man. Kurtz twisted and manipulated his instinctive power to pioneer a new civilisation. A civilisation which was contemptuous towards the mere commercial view of life 'Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame' a principle of business enveloped their world. Kurtz believed he was a Messiah embarking on a new civilisation, which was 'on the threshold of great things'.
             We can learn that civilisation and instinct are of the same origin like a leaf from a tree. The main emphasis of Said's argument in 'Culture and Imperialism' is that it is impossible to think about narrative and culture in general without thinking about imperialism. Like Jameson, Said tends towards the view that an awareness of the patterns of global imperiali...