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Heart Of Darkness Imperialism Essay

Decent Essays

Madison Mauro
AP English IV
Mrs. Guy
3 August 2015

The colonization of Africa occurred during the late 1800s and earlier 1900s, and was due to imperialistic motives for global preeminence. It is this term ‘colonization’ that embodies a rich--and dark--history of political, social, and economic European hegemony upon a people indigenous to Africa. This scramble for Africa, spurred superficially by the need to ‘civilize’ the savages and veritably by European economic necessity, resulted in exploration of particular sites within Africa, such as the Congo, by European companies. Heart of Darkness explores this history through the character Marlow and inherent symbols throughout the novel. There are several conspicuous symbols throughout …show more content…

Marlow attributes his own experiences within the Congo by stating “It seemed to somehow throw a kind of light on everything about me” (51). This metaphoric use using the dynamics of light and darkness is particularly noteworthy in the way that it is used to depict the character Kurtz. Marlow, in his description of Kurtz, says “Everything belonged to him...The thing was to know what he belonged to, how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own” (109) and that Kurtz was like “old ivory” among a crowd of “made of dark and glittering bronze” (126). The conflicting metaphor of light and darkness is used to contribute to Kurtz as a symbol and to the idea that while Kurtz is the embodiment of the values held by European colonizers, he is also the paradoxical epitome of savagery and darkness. The light, only used in the story to describe cerebral awareness and colonists, and the dark, only used in description of the physical state of the jungle and the visceral state of the ‘savages’, are both used in portraying Kurtz, illustrating the struggle of Kurtz’s light (civilization) versus Kurtz’s darkness (barbarism). Not only does Conrad depict this inherent struggle through the use of light and darkness within Kurtz, but also through Kurtz’s contradictory

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