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Social Justice In The Motorcycle Diaries By Che Guevara

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Context influences how an individual invests themselves into discovery, and how transformative it may be, based upon their presence or absence of agency. The notion that discoveries have the power to be transformative because of the way they confront/challenge established assumptions and beliefs in a way prompts new understandings and insights. Che Guevara's memoir "The Motorcycle Diaries", published in 1993, recounts his discovery of the injustices of social and political inequality within his cultural context of Latin America in the mid 20th century. J C's late Victorian novella HOD shares G's discovery of inequality and injustice, because f the differing historical contexts, Conrad is unable to discover the power of political activism and …show more content…

Within this context, the powerful are revealed to be untouched by moral considerations in their greedy quest for resources. Towards the end of the novel, Marlow encounters a Russian apologist on behalf of Kurtz, whose actions he recounts "To speak plainly, he (Kurtz) raided the country" and of whom he defends "evidently the appetite for more ivory had got the better of the - what shall I say? - less material aspirations" This serves to symbolise the justification offered by European imperialists for their acts of injustice and exploitation, as represented by Kurtz as an individual. Despite the horrifying discovery of exploitation, Marlow and those around him fail to initiate change to alter the mistreatment of the Congolese and their land. Marlow's growing understanding of the avarice and greed that underpinned colonisation further demonstrates the novella's representation of its total absence of humanity "I felt an intolerable weight oppressing my breast... The unseen presence of Victoria's corruption, the darkness of an impenetrable night..." (81) The motif of dark imagery continues to act as a symbol of the brutal conditions of colonialism. Ultimately, Marlow's final refusal to reveal the truth about Kurtz to the man's fiancé acts to symbolise the culture of denial and collusion that characterised European exploitation. "I could not tell her. It would have been too dark, too dark altogether" Repetition of dark imagery serves to reiterate Marlow and the responder's discovery, of the brutality and corruption that achieves domination over the

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