Compare And Contrast Imperialism

Imperialism has been a long-standing practice throughout history: the need for power, control and wealth has caused many different countries to expand outwards and take control of new lands. This drive to take power is not usually something that can be done peacefully, and in their stories, Joseph Conrad and George Orwell both give examples of the dark side that comes with taking over another country for the imperialist’s benefit. Realistic writings like Heart of Darkness and “Shooting an Elepahnt” are important because it gives warning to future generations that imperialism is a danger that changes people for the worse. Both these stories suggest that imperialism brings out many negative characteristics of human nature, the biggest of which are cruelty and hypocrisy. These negative traits can be seen through the terrible treatment of the natives who are being oppressed by the

Marlow shows this same hypocrisy in Heart of Darkness. He is uncomfortable with the abuse of the natives on several occasions and yet never speaks against it or does anything to help them. The one exception to this is his first sighting of the starving and exhausted natives, when he gives biscuits to some of them before he moves on to the station as fast as he can to get away from the obvious abuse. However, this almost emphasizes the fact that Marlow turns a blind eye to the cruelty he says he’s so disgusted with because he never again does anything to help any abused and starving natives. In fact, Marlow even discusses not seeing the natives as human despite his obvious discomfort with their mistreatment: “that was the worst of it—the suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one” (Conrad, 36). It’s even more hypocritical that he sees them as inhuman because just before stating so, he had spoken of how useful the natives were on the trip down river to retrieve