Violence and Power in Society

Paper Summary:

This paper examines the structures of narrative through which violence is represented in the books "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad and "A Different Kind of War Story" by Carolyn Nordstrom. The writer explains that for Nordstrom's subjects as well as Conrad, the explicit descriptions of violence are secondary, while the larger implications of the violence for the social fabric and the identities of those subjected to it are what is fundamentally important. The writer looks at how Nordstrom argues that the relationship between the "self and the world" is key in understanding both the effects of violence upon its civilian victims as well as the processes through which these civilian victims may reconstitute this relationship and their sense of social order. The writer concludes that the relationship between "the self and the world" is particularly important in Nordstrom's understanding of the impact of violence upon the civilian victims of violence in that, in most of the non-western cultural contexts she has studied, the victims of violence do not register its impact in the same way as it would register in the west.

From the Paper:

"Although the narrative told by Marlow in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is a fiction, much of Conrad's work was based upon his intimate knowledge of the impact of imperialism upon the parts of the world, such as the Belgian Congo, that had been forcibly colonized by European powers. In representing the violence that was an integral element of this European conquest and domination, perhaps the predominant image is one of ambiguity and indeterminacy."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness and Selections from The Congo Diary. New York: Modern Library, 1999.
• Nordstrom, Carolyn. A Different Kind of War Story. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997.

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