Ministry of Darkness

Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness follows a young man named Marlow during his travels through the Belgium Congo. Throughout the novel there are countless mentions of the native Congo people being inferior to the white man along with many mentions of the white man’s abuse of the natives. The seemingly constant symbols of light and dark can be interpreted to represent the complicated relationship between the two races, however there is a lot of ambiguity in the specific scenes. Contrary to…

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad has many negative views on imperialism. There are two reasons why the novella judges imperialism so critically. Imperialism has two goal and both are not met in the novella. The first goal the novella does not meet is the economic goal. Many workers are not doing there job effectively and the company is mainly run inefficiently. The other goal the novella does not meet is the goal to civilize the natives. Instead of civilizing the natives the company abuses and…

some of those unknown regions, bringing European government, religion, and attitudes to people otherwise deemed “savage.” The effect of this process of colonialism has been famously documented in two widely different novels, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1902) and Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1959). Both of these writers, to great extent, portray the negative effects that colonialism had on the African people, with Conrad…

Robinson Crusoe Literary Criticism Essay Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe is a tale based on the real survival of a Scottish merchant marooned on a Caribbean island during the early 1700s. In Expanding Empires, Expanding Selves : Colonialism, the novel and Robinson Crusoe by, Brett C. McInelly (2003 John Hopkins University Press). Brett C. McInelly, talks about British and European colonialism of the era, religious conversion, expansion of trade, and the mastering of oneself and destiny In…

Okefenokee Swamp, “a convenient point of entry and a magnificent show-window for the “Land of the Trembling Earth”, yet it's not just what the description makes it out to be. Passage one may hint at that, but in passage two the magnificent in the description switches to hellish by the style in which the author writes. Although the passages are largely about the same thing passage one intends to draw visitors towards the swamp, while passage two warns against travel to the “hellish zoo”.…

The Nature of Blood in Shakespeare’s Macbeth and the African Political Space By Segun Omosule Ph. D Department of English, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye.08052037088; jala1964@yahoo.com/omosulesegun@gmail.com/www.scholarsviews.com ABSTRACT The preoccupation of this paper is to prove that Macbeth and the orgies that are associated with him are borne out of fear and that the series of killings that are recorded during his reign are meant to prove that he is a fearless soldier and…

In the play Les Blancs by Lorraine Hansberry the effects of colonialism is a theme that is irrevocably present throughout the plot. The play is set in a fictional country in Africa and it depicts in detail the results of European presence. Although the setting and characters were fictional the story line followed and contained various realistic situations and issues that existed and continues to exist in colonized countries. Some major issues that are presented in the play that transcends…

Dramatic Irony- irony occurs in a fictional work when the audience / reader or a character knows something that another character does not. The pardoner’s prologue exemplifies dramatic irony within the Pardoner’s preaching regarding evil. ( Chaucer 18, 20, 21,) The pardoner addresses within his sermon the root of all evil is avarice, yet he willingly reveals to the reader his true intent within such declaration was a selfish greed.( Chaucer, 46) Due to his occupation, and previous assertions,…

In Maus I & II by Art Spiegelman and “Metamorphosis” by Kafka, a heavy (and sometimes overwhelming) theme is alienation and dehumanization. While both texts discuss different topics and scenarios, their pivotal theme is what ultimately tie the stories together. Both authors use very different strategies to showcase the alienation and dehumanization based upon their story’s genre. Maus I & II is a very real and intense comic that gives a snapshot of what it was like to be a Jew in World War II…

The novel Things Fall Apart, the author Chinua Achebe illustrates and portrays the idea of the Igbo society in Africa. The setting takes place in an African village of Umuofia, when the main protagonist, Okonkwo is the a well known Igbo man also a tragic hero. He wrestles Amalinze the Cat, and overall defeats him which leads him to be a successful man. He also is married to three wives which shows him that he is a great man in the village. However, he is also portrayed as a tragic hero, by…