Heart Of Darkness
Throughout the story, , there is a thin line between what is seen as reality and what is illusion. The main character soon realizes that he has different interpretations of events and physical things than that of the Europeans. Charlie Marlow first realizes how many things, events and even people, in Africa, seemed misnamed by the Europeans, distorting them from what they truly are. Consequently he is wary of labeling something in case he might misname it and as a result devalue it. In the end, Kurtz, who has already reached enlightenment, will be the one to teach Marlow, though not directly, the significance of a name. Charlie Marlow is the only one to be referred to by his name because ...
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clarified, by a pilgrim, to be a front against "a camp of natives - he called them enemies! - hidden out of sight somewhere" (Conrad 78) Marlow felt a "touch of insanity" in the whole concept of shelling the natives, who had done nothing to be considered enemies or criminals and had very likely fled the area a long time ago. Yet the Europeans feel that the natives are truly a threat and must be controlled. Further along, Marlow meets a pilgrim who is called the brick-maker, yet promptly notices that there is "not a scrap of brick anywhere in the station". This is another example of how something, in this case the brick-maker, is misnamed, as he is not actually a brick-maker since he does not make any bricks at all, and therefore really has no purpose there. A final example of how things are misnamed and distorted is pertaining to Kurtz. Firstly, "kurtz" means short, yet to Marlow, the man appears to be "seven feet long" (Conrad ...
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bond between the natives when he sees them dancing about on the shore, which shows that Marlow is looking into his subconscious: "but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself that there was in you just the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspicion of there being a meaning in it which you could comprehend." (Conrad 106) Since the Europeans thought only about subjugating the natives and hording ivory, they were not "in-tune" with their subconscious and therefore unable to find the truths and the reality within them. The natives represented simple reality uncorrupted by European values of physical wealth, which Marlow ...
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Heart Of Darkness. (2005, December 31). Retrieved December 23, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Heart-Of-Darkness/38862
"Heart Of Darkness." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 31 Dec. 2005. Web. 23 Dec. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Heart-Of-Darkness/38862>
"Heart Of Darkness." Essayworld.com. December 31, 2005. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Heart-Of-Darkness/38862.
"Heart Of Darkness." Essayworld.com. December 31, 2005. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Heart-Of-Darkness/38862.
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