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Was Conrad Racist?, 2008.
This paper critically examines Chinua Achebe's essay "Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness'".
1,067 words (approx. 4.3 pages), 3 sources, MLA, $ 37.95
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Abstract
The paper discusses Chinua Achebe's claim that Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" was intentionally racist. The paper examines the historical context of the novella and argues that Conrad was a man of the times, with its prejudices, values and its dehumanizing view of people of color. The paper further contends that the picture Conrad paints is merely a true representation of African life as he witnessed it.
From the Paper
"Chinua Achebe wrote a radical easy in 1975 claiming that the Heart of Darkness was not the great work of art that it is depicted as due to the racism that is so prevalent in the novella. Achebe even went a step further to say that Conrad was a racist and that he intentionally wrote into the Heart of Darkness his racist views. Historically it has been argued since the publication of the Heart of Darkness in 1897 that Conrad wrote of the Congolese he knew through his work as a seaman and that his life in Europe, specifically Poland where he resided was a great factor in his writing of imperialism."
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"The Nigger of the Narcissus": Conrad?s Examination of a Race, 2005.
An examination of Joseph Conrad's novel, showing that by lacking agency, Conrad's purpose is not of a racist perspective.
2,000 words (approx. 8.0 pages), 4 sources, MLA, $ 63.95
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Abstract
A paper which examines Joseph Conrad's stylistic techniques which he uses to convey the general attitude toward African-Americans of his time, yet he himself is not acting as racist. This paper gives an explanation for Conrad's seemingly racist title and text, "The Nigger of the Narcissus".
From the Paper
"Conrad's reversal shows that none of the white shipmates are racist towards James Wait. Although Conrad's white seamen present racist language towards Wait, there is no indication that they feel themselves superior to him. In fact, with Conrad's reversal of roles in slavery, constant allusions to slavery reveal that the white shipmates are inferior to Wait. "We served him in his bed with rage and humility; and he rewarded us by unconciliating criticism...he made himself master of every moment of our existence" (31). By giving such power to a black character, Conrad compares the black James Wait to a white slave holder."
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Joseph Conrad?s ?Heart of Darkness?, 2006.
An analysis of the purpose of Joseph Conrad's use of racist terms in "Heart of Darkness".
885 words (approx. 3.5 pages), 0 sources, $ 31.95
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Abstract
This paper analyzes Joseph Conrad's linguistic style in "Heart of Darkness" to determine whether he used racist comments in order to evoke a certain linguistic effect and further his ideas and plot or whether he was actually a racist in his own "heart of darkness".
From the Paper
"Linguistic style is the most important determinant in approximating authorial intent. As the post-modern era of criticism has imploded the importance of authorial intent, it has completely revoked the applicability of examining an author's history and lifestyle to determine literary intent."
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"Heart of Darkness", 2002.
This paper examines the accusation that Joseph Conrad is a racist, in light of his book, "Heart of Darkness".
1,135 words (approx. 4.5 pages), 4 sources, MLA, $ 39.95
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Abstract
This paper examines the claim by critics of the book "Heart of Darkness" that its author, Joseph Conrad, is a racist. The views of Achebe, Sarvan and Singh are outlined in this discussion of the book's story and characters, as it addresses the issue of racism.
From the Paper
"In his book Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad uses all the trappings of a traditional adventure tale ? mystery, suspense, an exotic setting, and unexpected attack. Chinua Achebe concluded, "Conrad, on the other hand, is undoubtedly one of the great stylists of modern fiction and a good story-teller into the bargain" (Achebe 252). Despite Conrad?s great story telling abilities, he has been viewed as a racist by some of his critics. Achebe, Sarvan, and Singh are just a few that view him as a racist, though the criticisms vary.
Frances B. Singh insinuates that although Heart of Darkness is clearly critical of colonization, it puts forward that the Africans were the innocuous victims of European greed and will-to-power, the imagery of darkness it uses as metaphysical dissertation links "evil" with the groups drawn on in anthropological images of "primitive" peoples. The narrative carries the insinuation that Kurtz's "evil" is indicated by his "going native", and that "evil, in short, is African". While the narrative makes it clear that the till-to-power implicit in the very idea of a "civilizing mission" is what leads Kurtz to set himself up as a god, the fact that he sets himself up as a tribal god reinstates the idea of racial superiority at a deeper level than the critique of colonialism."
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Joseph Conrad?s ?Heart of Darkness?, 2002.
This paper discusses Joseph Conrad?s ?Heart of Darkness? in its context of the colonial history of the Belgium Congo.
1,600 words (approx. 6.4 pages), 7 sources, MLA, $ 52.95
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Abstract
This paper describes Joseph Conrad?s ?Heart of Darkness? in racist terms because of the way Conrad contrasts the civilization of white Britain and the non-civilization of black Africa. The author feels that the character of Marlow is a persona for the Conrad, which he used in several stories and novels. This paper explains that Marlow makes a journey from civilization into the darkest part of Africa to bring back a man named Kurtz who has gone into the interior and shed his civilized exterior to degenerate into a primitive.
From the Paper
"David Livingstone was a Scottish missionary who explored the Congo between 1840 and 1872 and brought the region to the attention of the world when Henry Morton Stanley, a journalist, was commissioned by the New York Herald to conduct a search for him. After this, Belgium's King Leopold II turned his ambitions to the area. At the time, the Congo River basin remained for the most part unknown to Europeans. Leopold II founded the International Association of the Congo, financed by an international consortium of bankers. The north bank of the river had been claimed by France, leading ultimately to the creation of the colony of French Congo. Leopold II sent Stanley to explore the territory, and he sailed up the Congo to Stanleyville (now Kisangani), signing more than 450 treaties on behalf of Leopold II with persons described as local chieftains who had agreed to cede their rights of sovereignty over much of the Congo Basin."
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'Shades of Black - Conrad Black, his Rise and Fall', 2006.
A discussion and review of Richard Siklos's well written biography of Conrad Black's career, "Shades of Black - Conrad Black, his Rise and Fall".
1,800 words (approx. 7.2 pages), 1 source, $ 71.95
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Abstract
This paper reviews "Shades of Black: Conrad Black - His Rise and Fall", Richard Siklos's well written biography of Conrad Black's career and dramatic collapse after 2002. The paper explains that Siklos interviewed more than 200 persons before a 1995 edition of which this volume is a revised expansion featuring another 50 interviews. Siklos also spent hours speaking to Black, indirectly attempting to account for his extravagance and need to impress others, atop his drive for power. Much is revealed through Siklos's notes on Black's wife, the former Barbara Amiel. The paper reports that Siklos leads the reader through a summary of Black's family background, his youth in north Toronto's Bride Path area, his expulsion from Upper Canada College, and later, Trinity College School, before Thornton Hall, Toronto.
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Conrad on Colonialism, 2007.
This paper analyzes Joseph Conrad's beliefs on European Colonialism in his novel, "Heart of Darkness."
1,532 words (approx. 6.1 pages), 1 source, MLA, $ 50.95
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Abstract
The paper examines Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" and highlights the overarching theme of European ineffectiveness in Africa. The paper shows how Conrad is not fond of the money-grubbing tactics of the colonial Europeans and mocks their useless attempts to 'civilize' the land. The paper maintains that Conrad emphasizes the anti-European aspect more than the anti-African aspect and thus "Heart of Darkness" is not pre-dominantly racist.
From the Paper
"In Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, one of the prevalent themes throughout the work is Marlow's attitude towards European aggression in Africa, and the absurdity of it all. From the boat attacking the coastline to the section reviewed below, where the storehouse catches fire, the attempted civilization of the African continent is met either with no result or hostility from the land itself. This can be taken in a larger sense to be representative of Conrad's anti-colonialist viewpoint, Marlowe's opinion of the enterprise of ivory-hunting instead of exploration, and, despite all the blatantly racist materials in this book, the moderately pro-African ideas espoused within."
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Conrad and Austin, 2002.
Discusses how authors like Joseph Conrad ("Heart of Darkness") and Jane Austin ("Pride and Prejudice") used language to describe the happenings of their times.
1,651 words (approx. 6.6 pages), 5 sources, MLA, $ 53.95
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Abstract
This paper links the dark vision of Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" to the fripperies of Jane Austen by showing that these writers can be seen as important bookmarks to the era of the modern novel. We cannot understand Conrad's work without understanding its connections to his time. The paper shows that by looking back to a writer like Austen, we can see how much has changed in the world at large and in the world of the novel during the Victorian era and the ways in which authors had begun to lose faith in the power of language to represent, to contain and to describe language. The paper argues that we cannot understand Conrad's relationship to language without understanding the larger context within which literature was created and consumed. The era from the coronation of Queen Victoria in 1837 until her death in 1901, was an era of a number of key social changes that would force writers to take clear positions on issues of immediate importance to the rest of society. The paper shows, therefore, that we see very little social criticism in Austen - whose "Pride and Prejudice" was written 20 years before Victoria ascended the throne - and almost exclusively social comment in Conrad's story, published in 1902, the year after Victoria died. But even as writers began to become engaged more and more in the world at large, they became increasingly aware of the fact that language is of limited use in effecting change. The paper shows that for a writer like Austen, the power of language had only to carry a plot and characters; for Conrad language had to have to have the ability to transform the world. It is thus hardly surprising that Austen should find language adequate to her desires and her needs and that Conrad should find it inadequate.
From the Paper
"Conrad throughout this book implies that civilizations are created by the setting of laws and codes that encourage people to achieve higher standards ? that civilization and social bonds compel us to act out our better selves. The institutions of communal and civilized life act as dams, as bulwarks to prevent humans from reverting back to their darker tendencies, which they will do as soon as they are left alone or loosed from the constraints of their own societies, an element essential to much of colonial thought, as Back and Solomos (2000) suggest. Conrad suggests, through his insistence on the primacy of metaphor, that language cannot be counted on to be one of those civilizing bonds. When a writer can no longer count on language to provide an anchor in the world, we recognize that we are entering the rocky waters of modernism."
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Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", 2000.
Explores the two main themes of Joseph Conrad?s novel "Heart of Darkness" which concern British imperialism in Africa and the effect of Africa on Conrad?s characters.
1,744 words (approx. 7.0 pages), 9 sources, $ 56.95
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Abstract
This paper takes a look at the theme of British imperialism in Africa in "Heart of Darkness" as well as how Africa affects the main characters in the novel. The paper looks at Conrad's use of the symbol of darkness to represent the corruption of British Imperialism and the dark side of human nature. Also discussed in the paper is how the characters Kurtz and Marlow are corrupted by their experiences in Africa.
From the Paper
"Historian Walter Phelps Hall states that Africa was known to British Imperialists as the Dark Continent (Phelps 748). Phelps says that reporter Henry M. Stanley used this phrase in his 1878 biography Through the Dark Continent to describe Africa?s dense, unexplored jungles that were a mystery to Europeans until the 19th century (Phelps 750). Author Joseph Conrad experienced the Dark Continent in the Fall of 1889 when he adventured on the African Congo (Kimbrough ix). His book Heart of Darkness was motivated by his experiences on his Congo trip. He witnessed first hand the effects of English Imperialism on Africa and on the Europeans who visited Africa."
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Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", 2001.
A look at Conrad's anti-imperialist and stereotypical views in his novel "Heart of Darkness".
1,626 words (approx. 6.5 pages), 1 source, $ 53.95
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Abstract
This paper looks at Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" from a historical perspective and argues that Conrad's views were both anti-imperialist and stereotypical as well as racist of the West and non-West.
From the Paper
"Conrad?s work examines the struggles between civilization and savagery, nature and progress, cannibalism against culture, Christianity versus magic: all these opposites and others battle in the dense undergrowth of the narrative. Although it may seem that in Heart of Darkness, Conrad is expressing anti-imperialist sentiment, a deeper theme may lie beneath. Conrad may be critiquing society as a whole, using imperialism as a means because it was the strongest example of what was evil in society in his time. Thus, by examining Joseph Conrad?s Heart of Darkness in its historical context, it is evident that Conrad?s views are both anti-imperialist and stereotypical and racist of the West and non-West. "
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?Racist?, 2004.
This paper seeks the definition of the word "racist".
895 words (approx. 3.6 pages), 5 sources, APA, $ 31.95
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Abstract
This paper explains that ?racist? or ?racism? are highly misused and misunderstood terms; merely race consciousness does not constitute a racist mindset. The author points out that a "racist" is a person who adopts blatantly discriminatory behavior or metes out ill treatment to people of other races because of biased mindset. The paper states that race is as much a part of one?s identity as family names and country of origin; therefore, to refer to someone as ?black? or ?Hispanic? doesn?t really make one a racist, but claiming people of color are deficient or inferior in some respect does constitute racial bigotry.
From the Paper
"If you see a black person with slightly odd eating habits and you comment on the same, does that make you a racist? Well if yes, why? Why can?t it be seen in the same light as commenting on odd behavior of some white person? What makes you a racist? Who is a racist? Is racist a person who ?hates? people of other races or is he someone who believes his race is superior to all other races? If you think that ?hatred? and ?superior? are synonymous, then you are one of those many misguided souls who have heard all about racism but are not certain as to what really constitutes racist attitude."
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Joseph Conrad?s ?Heart of Darkness?, 2004.
This paper discusses Joseph Conrad?s thoughts on imperialism and its associated problem of racism in his novel, ?Heart of Darkness?.
1,840 words (approx. 7.4 pages), 5 sources, MLA, $ 59.95
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Abstract
This paper explains that Conrad?s ?Heart of Darkness? was written in 1899; therefore, when reading the book from this historical time, the reader must keep in mind the prevailing norms of that period and compare the thoughts of the author to those of the norms of this period. The author points out that this novel is based on Conrad?s firsthand experience of the Congo region of West Africa, which was gained when Conrad was actually sent up the Congo River to an inner station to rescue a company agent, who died a few days later aboard ship. The paper relates that ?Heart of Darkness? is told in the words of Charlie Marlow, a seaman, and filtered through the thoughts of an unidentified, listening narrator.
From the Paper
"In 1899, when "Heart of Darkness" was first published, both Europe and America were well on their way to building empires in other parts of the world. Several European states had already experienced unprecedented expansion worldwide during the last third of the nineteenth century due to increased industrialization, adventurism, and paternalism. Latin America, Asia and Africa were targeted to control seaports and trade. England, the leading European colonial power, had already established much of its overseas empire, followed by France with territories in Southeast Asia and North Africa, and Portugal, Spain and Holland, who still retained some of their earlier holdings. Germany and Italy were quite new to the game."
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"Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe and "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad, 2002.
A comparative discussion and analysis of two stories, "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe and "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad.
1,032 words (approx. 4.1 pages), 3 sources, MLA, $ 36.95
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Abstract
This paper is an introduction and discussion of two stories, both set in Africa. ?Things Fall Apart? by Chinua Achebe and ?Heart of Darkness? by Joseph Conrad. It compares the two stories as a reader response criticism. It explores the themes of darkness and language. The writer argues that Conrad?s work is harder to grasp but is haunting and vivid. Achebe?s work is perceived as simpler to comprehend. In conclusion, the discussion highlights that whilst ?Heart of Darkness? is a disturbing read, it illustrates well how the natives suffered in Africa and causes the reader to think. In contrast, ?Things Fall Apart? is an easier read but fails to make its mark in the same way.
From the Paper
"The purpose of this paper is to introduce, discuss, and analyze the two stories "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe and "Heart of Darkness," by Joseph Conrad. Specifically, it will compare the two papers as a reader response criticism. Conrad's work is difficult to grasp at first reading, while Achebe's is simpler to comprehend. Yet, it is Conrad's work that haunts the reader and stays with him, because of the forceful descriptions and vivid language Conrad uses to describe the dark and deep African jungle, and ultimately, because it makes the reader think".
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Coppala?s ?Apocalypse Now? and Conrad?s "Heart of Darkness", 2005.
This paper compares the character Captain Kurtz from Francis Ford Coppala's film "Apocalypse Now" and the character Mr. Kurtz of Joseph Conrad's book "Heart of Darkness", which inspired the film.
870 words (approx. 3.5 pages), 2 sources, MLA, $ 30.95
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This paper explains that the mission of Captain Kurtz in "Apocalypse Now" was embarked upon because a supposedly good government led him to the jungle, rather than an avowedly rapacious company as in Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", making 'the horror' of what occurs even sharper to the viewer as well as to the captain. It points out that Captain Kurtz thus seems more sympathetic in the film, as opposed to the novel's Mr. Kurtz. The author shows how the movie scene, with the grotesquely deployed human body parts, highlights the inability of the native population, whom Kurtz has been sent to help, to understand the Americans; in contrast, the heads upon the poles by Conrad's Mr. Kurtz merely stresses the dark brutality of the African continent and Kurtz's willingness to make use of native techniques of warfare to enact psychological control over his populace. The paper relates that the madness of Marlon Brando's Captain Kurtz becomes a symptom of the madness of the Vietnam war rather than an act or symptom of a supposed leader's private psychological disintegration as in the book.
From the Paper
"Marlow finds Mr. Kurtz in an obscure location in the interior. Human heads mounted on poles surround Kurtz. But unlike "Apocalypse Now," which also has a scene featuring human body parts, grotesquely deployed, Captain Kurtz's heads were not won in a hypocritical attempt to improve the populace. Mr. Kurtz used them to establish his domination and control over fearful and cowering natives. In contrast, Coppala's Captain Kurtz, although calcified in his heart, and turned brutal and mad by the events he has witnessed, shows a more compassionate side to Willard when the two men discuss Coppala's even more horrific scene of native, human dismemberment."
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Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness', 2006.
A discussion regarding Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' in relation to the British colonial experience.
1,125 words (approx. 4.5 pages), 4 sources, $ 44.95
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Abstract
This paper discusses how Conrad's plot revolves around the disintegration of Marlowe's high flung theories about colonialism when he sees the cruelty his government has imparted on the African people. In 'Heart of Darkness', the colonial objectives of the British are also thematic through these insular points of view. Conrad writes on how the English perceive the African in their travels to Africa.
From the Paper
" In this literary analysis of the Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad the basis of British perspectives on colonialism will be brought forth in Africa. The theme of this novel reflects the horror of colonialism, and the ruthless nature of governments that are presented through a British point of view. In relation to this the theme of colonialism, the character of Marlow in the novel reflect youthful and naive rejection of British imperial design. In essence, the theme of colonialism and Marlowe's rebellion against colonial principles will be analyzed within this study. For the author Joseph Conrad, the character Marlow is a young man that must learn that high ideals are colonial principles through experience, not through politically correct ideologies and literary propaganda. "
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