Heart Of Darkness Analytical Essay

From the Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, we are introduced to a character named Marlow. At an early age, he loves looking at the map one particle place he was fascinated was the Congo River. So he decided to go there. When Marlow arrives in Congo, he will truly see how the natives are treated by the whites. He is horrified by what he sees and describes the natives as being enslaved. They don’t look like humans anymore, they were the living dead, “I could see every rib, the joints of their limbs were like knots in a rope; each had an iron collar on his neck” (Conrad 70). As the story continues it gets worse, the indigenous people are slowly dying of disease and starvation (72). It was clear to him that they were not enemies nor criminals they are just innocent people who shouldn’t be treated this way. But Marlow realizes that he can’t do anything about it because he is the only one that thinks this is wrong. Marlow describes the women as living on their own (66) and that they should not be part of the men’s world until it gets worse (115). Marlow says this because he lied to a nameless woman who wants to know what Kurtz’s last words were. In doing so telling the truth would cause some problems and …show more content…
In the Shooting an Elephant he says, “When a nimble Burman tripped me up on the football field (another Burman) looked the other way, the crowd yelled with hideous laughter. This happened more than once (Orwell 392). An elephant was also introduced in the story. The elephant can be described as the Burmese people being powerful when they are in control. But no one wanted to deal with the elephant and so Orwell had to step in. Orwell does want to kill the animal but he does it anyway since he does not want to be laughed at nor does not want to look like a fool (397). So he made his decision having to shot several times killing the elephant