Heart of Darkness
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Africa is a mysterious continent and I think we won’t reveal all its secrets in the nearest future. In the meantime we have some stereotypes concerning Africa and they influence our perception of this continent and its people.
Africa is a mysterious continent and I think we won’t reveal all its secrets in the nearest future. In the meantime we have some stereotypes concerning Africa and they influence our perception of this continent and its people. Certainly, I am not an extraordinary person who pretends to know everything and I understand that I haven’t got enough information about Africa but when I think about it my first ideas are about low level of life, poverty, starvation, permanent wars. Despite such a negative image, Africa still is the continent of beautiful nature and wild life which are not destroyed by human activity.
But I understand that such perception of Africa is very superficial and we need to get much more information for better understanding what it is. One of the sources of such information may be literature because, for example, on reading “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad and “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe, I acquired new knowledge about Africa, its people and its tragic history.
Firstly, I would like to say how “Heart of Darkness” has changed my mind about Africa. Actually, some of my ideas (poverty, low level of life, beautiful nature) found their approval in this work but I also realized that it is the continent of oppression and racial discrimination where white people treat themselves as gods like Hurtz in “Heart of Darkness”. Also I realized that Conrad’s metaphorical ‘darkness’ covers all those who live on the continent. It concerns not only native people white people who came to Africa too.
Unlike “Heart of Darkness” which is the view of a white man on Africa, “Things Fall Apart” is, as I would say, the view from inside. Personally, I don’t know a lot about African traditions and customs that is why I was really shocked when Okonkwo killed Ikemefuna, his foster son, because as Ezeudu informed him, the Oracle had said so. So, this work reveals African customs, religious beliefs and, to some extent, mentality of African people. This work help us to realize how naïve may be these people and what serious consequences may have the violation of their traditions or religious beliefs (the missionary activity, practically led to the civil war).
Returning to “Heart of Darkness”, I want to say that this work is about things which were typical for that epoch when it was created. I think the author wants to underline that European policy in Africa is disastrous for native population and the continent itself. J. Conrad raises the problem of a corrupting role of power which made Hurtz insane. But the main character begins to doubt if Hurtz should be considered insane because the world around him is unbearable for a normal person.
Particularly shocking is the brutality and cruelty of the company that severely exploits native people. Finally, one of the most important things, that the author wanted to convey to the reader, is the hypocrisy of the ‘civilized’ world. It became absolutely clear at the end of the novella when it turned out that Hurtz, a cruel tyrant in Africa, is an ideal and moral person for his fiancée in Europe. Thus, “Heart of Darkness” warns a reader that a hypocritical, cruel world in combination with unlimited power is doomed to die as Hurtz, one of the symbols of this world did.
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Aaron Schwartz's Last Articles :
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Education Acts of 1981, 1988, 1993 and 2001
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