The Importance Of Hamid And Joseph Conrad's Heart Of Darkness

Bloom argues that this influence could be gained consciously or unconsciously, and in our case of Hamid, he is conscious of his influence by Conrad because of the similarity in situation between Conrad and Hamid. Joseph Conrad is a polish lived in England, and so Hamid is a Pakistani lived in America. Conrad personally visited the Congo before writing his novel and he wrote about a place he knows, also, Hamid has been to America and studied in Princeton before writing his novel. Both novels reflect a real journey of their writers. Conrad wrote about a political situation at his age and he reflected the way that Africans were treated during the colonization, and Hamid wrote about a political situation at his time and reflected that way that …show more content…
The African mistress represents Africa. It is noticed that, Hamid use of Erica is almost the same as Conrad's use of the intended, both are white-civilized women, both lost people they love, both mourn them for the rest of their lives, and the most important thing is that, they are both symbols of their continents. When we read Conrad's Heart of Darkness, we can easily inspect that the Kurtz's intended represent civilization and white woman who holds the light in her hand; Marlow describes the intended as:
‘I had heard you were coming.’ I noticed she was not very young—I mean not girlish. She had a mature capacity for fidelity, for belief, for suffering. The room seemed to have grown darker, as if all the sad light of the cloudy evening had taken refuge on her forehead. This fair hair, this pale visage, this pure brow, seemed surrounded by an ashy halo from which the dark eyes looked out at me. Their glance was guileless, profound, confident, and trustful. (Conrad. …show more content…
Mohsin Hamid is one those novelists who is influenced by Joseph Conrad, and he reflected Conrad's Heart of Darkness into his age and he wanted to create a neo- Heart of Darkness that fits our generation. Hamid has benefit of Conrad's style when it comes to talk about a historical event or when to make a novel about your own journey. Hamid also, used Conrad symbolism of women to politicize them and to represent a political system. Hamid uses the narrative style that Conrad uses in his novel when he silenced the other for the sake of voice to be heard and to convey his message, just like what Conrad did when he wanted to convey his message he silenced all the voices around