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Blindness And Lack Of Morality In Joseph Conrad's Heart Of Darkness

1392 Words6 Pages

Kareem Mansour
IB1 HL English
Mr. Key
Blindness and Lack of Morality
Joseph Conrad’s s novel “Heart of Darkness” portrays an abominable image of Africa that is outlined with darkness, gloominess and inhumanity. At Conrad’s time, the idea of exploration and colonization was flourishing. The phenomenon of exploration and expedition of the unknown has influenced Joseph Conrad’s views as he wrote the “Heart of Darkness”. Colonialism was known to be the norm, and not many people saw anything amiss. From a European point of view, the natural next step of any powerful European nation’s political agenda is embarking on voyages of exploration and colonialism. The European Colonizers were pitiless towards the neglected natives as they were nothing but …show more content…

As Marlow goes deeper into the heart of the continent, Conrad’s depiction of Africa is infused with a sense of fear loathing and abomination coupled with a sense that there is some dire evil at work; a malevolent force that carries out the acts of inhumanity. Illustrations of Joseph Conrad’s don’t only focus on Africa as a continent but also carries on the physical and mental characterization of the natives. The author describes Marlow’s first encounter with an African ceremony as, “a burst of yells, a whirl of black limbs, a mass of hands clapping, of feet stamping, of bodies swaying, of eyes rolling” (Joseph 57). Joseph Conrad goes portrays Marlow’s reaction to this somewhat bewildering frenzy of the natives “as sane men would be before an enthusiastic outbreak in a madhouse” (Joseph 58). Conrad’s description of these people shows them as deranged, frenzied, and intense feverish savages, not an image any modern day western writer would dare to warm up to. Nor could his English speaking readers understand the natives to be nothing but animate beasts and fascinating embodiments of sorrow. Joseph Conrad continues to reveal the ignorance of white men towards the African continent, as he depicts Africans as though they are “the other”, not to be considered as civilized human counterparts, but rather as brutes ready to be enslaved for a “better” cause. The impaired ideology of men and women alike agreed on this representation of the black race, yet they are heedless towards their certainly horrifying capacity to brutally yet ineffectively ameliorate an entire

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