Africa As a Foil To Europe In Heart Of Darkness

Joseph Conrad, in his novella Heart of Darkness, contributes to the western concept of Africas inferiority to Europe due to his situation as a white European that he has innately acquired; his intentions, however, cannot be describe through the available evidence. In fact, this novella can be seen as Conrads take on the European views of Africans from an outsider posture. When making judgements on the unknown, people are bound to trounce to stereotypes and prejudgements--in this case, Conrad and his white European audience. Whether, in doing so, he is attempting to be sore towards Africans or not is irrelevant to the fact that Conrads stance is slanting and racist. Just as Kurtz is a product of his nonreversible European upbringing, as we see in the novella, so is Conrad. A dichotomy of the Apollonian and Dionysian exists that balances rationality, morality, and emotion; the Apollonian is associated with structure and logic, while the Dionysian corresponds to the breakdo wn of structure and logic.The natives are seen as this radical, simpleton Dionysian entity that is balanced out by Kurtz as a European imperialistic Apollonian force. In doing so, Conrad portrays a view of Africans collectively as people who act upon emotions and instincts rather than upon rational thought, delegitimizing the Africas status.

Conrad exemplifies this the more than or less when, after the natives look to Kurtz as an dictatorial figure, he has shifted from rational and virtuously straight to irrational and morally ambiguous. In The whiten Mans Burden, Rudyard Kipling expresses the burdens of eurocen trism on the Europeans perspective on antit! hetical societies. He says, The easy, ungrudged praise./ Comes now, to search you manhood/ done all the thankless years,/Cold-edged with dear-bought wisdom,/The judgement of your peers, suggesting that the white man near feels obligated to serve the cultures they label as less down in auberge for them to develop and be grateful towards the...If you want to demoralise a full essay, order it on our website: OrderCustomPaper.com

If you want to get a full essay, visit our page: write my paper