Frankenstein and Heart of Darkness Essay

Total Length: 963 words ( 3 double-spaced pages)

Total Sources: 3

Page 1 of 3

(Sharrett Christopher)

Joseph Conrad makes it possible for his readers to see how human nature changes when it is presented with the concept of the other. While the European model of civilization had been related to mercy, compassion, and goodwill towards others, matters proved to be otherwise at the moment when Conrad's European characters encountered the African population. White people had apparently lost any sense of civilization, solely expressing their desire to dominate, exploit, torture, and dehumanize the black people that they had come across.

People are generally inclined to consider differences in race and species to be related to the concept of the other. From the early ages, mankind has been against differences of every kind, virtually expressing their desire to impose their power over the entities that had been different. There is much controversy around the colonization era, as most people in the present condemn the methods used by white people at the time. Concomitantly, present day people consider the period to have been vital in the process of evolution. While the main concept concerning the colonization era had been related to the colonists taking up land around the world and civilizing the natives that they found, the situation had been very different, as otherness intervened and influenced colonists in oppressing any natives that they came across because of their differences in color, language, traditions, and practically everything that had been different about them.

While it initially seemed that the Europeans had intended to bring civilization into Africa, the situation had slowly but surely become obvious, with black people being harshly discriminated in the process.
White people had mainly wanted to impose their power over the weaker black population and to exploit the resources present in the territory.

The monster created by Frankenstein and the black people in Congo had raised unimaginable sentiments in people that appeared to be civilized and with good intentions. Considering the otherness present in those that they had come across, Frankenstein and Kurtz felt fear, and the need to dominate.

Frankenstein and Kurzt had almost reached a stage when they considered themselves to have attained a godlike status, not only for the creature, and respectively, for the Africans, but for their human, white friends.

Frankenstein and Kurtz have found that their actions had had severe repercussions, as they had been responsible for human lives having been lost. They feared those that have been different to them, and, at the same time, they wanted to prove that they are superior, which, in fact, had led to their suffering.

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"Frankenstein And Heart Of Darkness", 06 April 2010, Accessed.18 May. 2024,
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/frankenstein-heart-darkness-1388