Modernist elements in the Heart of Darkness Essay

What would it be like if human nature never became “civilized?” The modernist novella, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad allowed him to communicate the different aspects of humanity by using distinctly individualized characters. The classification of characters involved in portraying humanity are Europeans, Natives and those who do not conform to either category. Conrad’s commentary on human nature in his novella Heart of Darkness is overall negative and pessimistic. Nigerian novelist, poet, and professor Chinua Achebe read Heart of Darkness with a keen eye and made many discoveries about how Joseph Conrad discreetly implemented his own ideologies of humanity in his novella. Achebe then goes on to say that “Heart of Darkness projects the…

in order to prevent the culture from being overpowered. The novel 419 fits in the categories of literature that came after the confederation period. 419 by Will Ferguson belongs to the category of a traditional postmodern Canadian novel since the novel has elements of intertextuality…

to this point the realist writers painted their characters in broad strokes, often using clichés and making people act in a different way to how a real person would behave in their situation. Modernists, on the other hand, stuck to psychological realism as closely as possible. The characters that they created were true to their social sphere, occupation and age, and the plot and narrative were dictated by their actions…

describes the heroism of soldiers and injects a powerful sense of realism. He also uses sound in his poem to make it alive, like “hearing bullets whizzing – And thought of music –” (14-15). Through these lines, the speaker is trying to show that the soldier listened to his officer even in the darkness caked with the noise of gunshots. The acuteness of hearing and implementing accurately what has been suggested, is the base of this poem. Similarly, Wilfred Owen also described the pain one soldier…