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The Heart Of Darkness By Joseph Conrad

Decent Essays

The Heart of Darkness is written by Joseph Conrad in the time period of British imperialism. In Heart of Darkness, we are shown that good and evil is a blurry concept, and not one of black and white. Thesis: The title of Conrad’s, Heart of Darkness, refers to power and lust, through the understanding of Fanon’s theory, we contract that the white imperialistic Europe is the darkness for the novella, however, due to his racist tendencies, Conrad describes the natives as black , or dark shapes as described in An Image of Africa.
The Heart of Darkness describes the colonization of an African tribe for the purpose of obtaining ivory by The Company. The Company is housed in Belgium, Germany, but has recruited the help of Marlow to recover the bones of his predecessor, Fresleven. While entering the jungle Conrad describes the canapés of the tree top casting a darkness that continues throughout their journey. This offers the reader a precursor as to what will be shown in the jungle, a darkness, an uncivilized community of “black shapes.” These black shapes are the natives of the Congo River, who have been forced into working for the company in the ivory trade. These natives are worked to near death and dehumanized to the point of being referred to as shapes and not as people. The natives are considered to be savages and are not referred to as human beings to further distance the relation between white Europeans and them. During communication between the natives, Achebe in An

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