Heart of darkness essay ISU

Tajvinder Singh

Mrs. Lloyd Henry

ENG 3UO

June 11^th, 2010

Heart of Darkness Essay

Darkness is something that most individuals image as evil, mysterious, or something the hides our fears. In the novel “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad, it is illustrated that darkness is found in the novel with its many images. Conrad portrays this with his use of setting, characterization, and point of view.

The first way Conrad portrays the theme of darkness is through his use settings, the first example of this would be in the beginning of the novel where the setting on the Nellie is described by the narrator. “It had become so pitch dark that we listeners could hardly see each other; for a long time already he, sitting apart, had been no more to us than a voice”. (Joseph Conrad page 6) Also the second example would be later on in the story when the men aboard the steamer, which is completely covered by fog, hear a loud cry somewhere around them. All the men are scared because they feel that a threat is near in the darkness. The darkness in this example would symbolize the unknown, something that conceals things the men are too frightened to face. The final example of darkness found in the setting of the novel is the Congo itself and how savage acts would be hidden. An example would be Kurt’s barbaric placement of human heads on top of poles surrounding his station house. This would show that everything in the Congo is concealed much like darkness and that is the only way Kurt could pull such an act.

The second way the author illustrates darkness is through his characterization. The first example of darkness being portrayed through the characters is the superiority of whites over blacks in the novel. This is caused from the Europeans who wanted to take the Congo by brute force. “It was just robbery with violence, and aggravated murder in order to get power and wealth. The conquest of the earth, which mostly means away from those who have a different complexion of slight flatter nose than ourselves, is not a pretty thing you look into too much” (page 6). At one point the natives were called helpers but they are more like slaves of the European colonists. Also the other example of darkness being portrayed through the characters is the corruption and greed of the Europeans in the Congo, which Marlow stated when entering the Congo. “I’ve seen the devil of violence, and the devil of greed, and the devil of hot desire; but all the starts! These were strong lusty, red-eyed devils that swayed and drove men-men, I tell you”(page 14). This shows another image of darkness evil and greed something most individuals possess.

The final way that is darkness is portrayed is from the point of view the story was being told from. In the novel Conrad chosen to change the point of view when Marlow shared his story to Marlow himself, this allows us clearly to know his attentions. An Example of this would be Marlow’s description of the “helpers” compared to his description of the Europeans. An example would be when Marlow described Kurt’s the manger, “I met a white man, in such an expected elegance of get-up that in the first moment I took for a sort of vision. I saw high started collar, white cuffs, a light a jacket, snowy trousers’ a clean necktie, and varnished boots” (page 32). When it comes for Marlow to describe the helpers he only has one description of them which is black and no other detail just black shapes, black bones, and black neck. Also by having this novel being told in first person you get to see his view, and his darkness within. An example of this would be when he witnessed a bunch of natives dying and he basically didn’t care that they were in pain. “Black shapes crouches, lay, and sat between the tress leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth, half coming out half effaced within the dim light, in all attitudes of pain, abandonment and despair.... And this was the place where some of the helpers had withdrawn to die.” (Page 21) Since this was in Marlow’s point of view we can see that he didn’t care to take any actions to help this allows the readers to see Marlow’s darkness, Final way that point of view in this novel portrays the darkness found in the novel is when Marlow realises that the ivory trade in the Congo is very dark, no one really knows how Kurt’s gets the amount of ivory he does.

In conclusion darkness has many images such as greed, evil, and fear. In the novel “The heart of darkness” Conrad illustrates with his setting, characterization and point of view that darkness could symbolize more than one thing and that it exists throughout the novel.

Freedom Of speech

Freedom of speech

Freedom of speech is a right we all have but shouldn’t there be an extent to this? In my opinion you shouldn’t be allowed to say everything on your mind. If people said anything they want to anyone they want, we would have many other problems in this world and that is the last thing we need, another problem to solve. Therefore freedom of speech should have an extent or it might cause arguments among individuals, teach the wrong morals the younger generations and cause more media corruption.

The first reason why there should be an extent to freedom of speech is the fact people won’t think twice of what they say, for example a comment is made on someone’s beliefs or regarding someone’s sexuality. This might cause some arguments between individuals both physically and verbally or even might become a hate crime. Thus this “freedom of speech” might cause people to break other laws, because not everyone can just talk things out.

The second reason why I believe that there should be an extent on freedom of speech is the fact we give the wrong morals to the younger generation. They will grow thinking that they can say anything to anyone without any consequences. An example of wrong morals being taught to the young generation would be if an individual who does not like a certain race walks around saying whatever he wants in front of kids. We make them think it is alright to treat people badly because they are different by not punishing the individual. This will cause many problems especially since we live in a culturally diverse society where everyone is different.

The final reason why I believe there should be an extent to freedom of speech is the fact we will have more media corruption. For example if someone who is writing a newspaper article on anything from food critics to interviews goes around writing negative things about people they don't like or a group they don't like. This will give people more reasons to hate each other with their opinions regarding anything that does nothing to do with fact of the issue like sex, colour, and religious beliefs. An example would be Iraq all we see is bloodshed by only an individual race we never see any good things because these good moments don't get views. The fact is we get a bad impression of the Muslim community. This is only one of the many races that are given a bad name the fact we label them as Muslim terrorist , Somalian pirate , and Sikh terrorist shows we are basing it on the background. Since when does your ethnicity decide the person you become, a criminal is a criminal.

In conclusion freedom of speech will cause alot of problems if there isn’t a extent to this. The last thing this world this needs is another problem and freedom of speech causes problems like arguments among individuals, teach the wrong morals the younger generations and cause more media corruption.

Saturday Climbing
By: Tajvinder Singh
Throughout the years different generations experience different challenges, what today youths face might not be that of what tomorrow’s generation faces. Some of these challenges today youths faces that previous generations wouldn’t be too concerned with are appearances, technology advancement, drug influences , and finally exposure to sexual content at young ages.
The first challenge today youths face is appearance, or other words how we look. Even though past generation deal with this, they did not have the media constantly telling an individual what’s wrong with their body and how they should look. An example of this would be men; from being kids to adults they are constantly told by the media you need six pack, big arms and chest in order to be a man or attract girls. From being little kids they give action figures of their favourite heroes but all these action figures are made muscular so at a young age it is encrypted in their head to be like their heroes they need to look like them. Men aren’t the only ones dealing with this struggle women also face the challenge of what the media tells them they should look like. Women also get the idea of a slim figure is a good figure from a young age because like men they are given their favourite toy but with a slim figure, this makes some girls think they need to grow to be like the doll. This type of obsession with being skinny can be deadly because women begin to have eating disorders and some women might be completely anorexic but all they keep seeing the mirror is a fat girl. This obsession of wanting to look like how the media tells us leaves some teens wanting to get plastic surgery just to enhance their natural beauty because of self esteem issues caused by the media.

The second challenge today youths face that previous generations did not have too much concern for is technology advancement. Even though technology advancement can be great for advancements in the medical career or any other career, today youths completely rely on technology for everything. An example of this would be a calculator, 30-40 years ago you couldn’t use a portable calculator to solve equations in math class but now you can. This attachment to using a calculator for every math problem has left some high school students in grade 10 who don’t know their own times table! They can’t even do simple multiplications and soon as a math tests comes and their calculator breaks they completely shut down and fail the test because they didn’t have to do these math problems in their head before. Another example of how technology has left some challenges for youths to face are computers , we are so use to writing essays on the computer where the writing program checks the spelling and grammar for you. When it comes to an English exam we have no clue what to check for or how to even use our own dictionaries because we never really had to.

The third challenge youths face today is the exposure to drugs has increased , kids as little as 12 start smoking weed , or start drinking. In our parents generations you wouldn’t find songs talking about smoking weed and drinking as a thing that makes you cool. The three main themes of popular songs today is either love, drugs, and sex this is a problem because little kids listen to these songs and when they hear doing drugs is alright or makes them cool they might consider experimenting with them. At ages 11-16 kids are very impressionable and might just do them to fit in especially , for example when I was in middle school people I knew would start drinking just because they think it made them cool. Finally another problem youths face is sex , this is a problem because kids as small as 12 years old are getting pregnant , you would never hear about this in your parents generation. The fact that at this generation we aren’t surprise shows that kids are exposed to sexual themes at a young age. Kids might see it on tv or on the internet the fact is parents can’t control what their kids watch 24/7 . Also these kids think its alright to get pregnant at 12 or 11 year olds they think they can take of a baby and it will be like taking care of a doll they saw on tv. The truth is they can’t , they can’t even make themselves breakfast in the morning but they think they can take care of another human being.