William Conrad

“To Live is to Be”: Existentialism in Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, and The Importance of Being Earnest During the modernist era of literature; a recurrent theme was prevalent in their works of art. The idea of existentialism revolving around the notion that you first experience life before you can begin to exist and understand yourself. This ideology stemmed from the main fear of the era; the end of the century. The fear of the unknown; the fear of what was to come in the following century (if it

Looking back through the history of humankind, there is an eminent pattern of primitive and truculent behaviour. William Golding and Joseph Conrad recognised this basic nature of humanity and portrayed it in their novels, Lord of the Flies and Heart of Darkness. The environmental and circumstantial influence on one’s human nature is thought to have the greatest impact, as the isolation from civilisation manumits the evil inside. Human nature, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is “the general psychological

Gunsmoke Synthesis Between the years 1952 to 1961, the series Gunsmoke was broadcasted across the nation. The show gave people insight into a past life of men who carried guns, fought for what was theirs, and showed that even the hardest people could be tamed. It was a time when the heroes of the old west started settling down, and in doing so they were either good guys like sheriffs, or they were bad guys that robbed people or places. From the stories of Gunsmoke the central character

indirect in its communication. Fiction may evoke feelings and perception on the human condition and teach us just how fragile our cultures are from keeping history and thought between the lines. In the story “An outpost of progress” by Joseph Conrad and in William Blake 's “London” we can see for ourselves the human condition of conflict and mortality. Fiction is subjective. A novel or poem is from an authors imagination and way of thinking. The characters and situations are made up. Readers do not

Integrity of the Imperialist Powers. One must ask these questions: Is Joseph Conrad’s short novel, Heart Of Darkness, a result of an epiphany that he had during his Congo river adventures?, is Joseph Conrad communicating a message of hypocrisy behind the imperialism that occurred in Africa during the nineteenth century? and does it question the integrity of the British Empire?, possibly so. Considering that people of the Victorian age believed

their lives placing themselves above the natives for no apparent purpose.  In Apocalypse Now, soldiers even begin to surf in the middle of a war battle!  Marlow claims, "What saves us (those that do work) is efficiency-the devotion to efficiency" (Conrad 10).  They are able to escape the reaches of darkness by keeping their minds set on 'just doing their job'.  It seems though, that efficiency does not save these men.  Ignorance becomes their real saving grace.  By ignoring the greed of his fellow

from civilization, overtaken by greed, exploitation, and material interests from his own kind. Conrad develops themes of personal power, individual responsibility, and social justice. His book has all the trappings of the conventional adventure tale - mystery, exotic setting, escape, suspense, unexpected attack. The book is a record of things seen and done by Conrad while in the Belgian Congo. Conrad uses Marlow, the main character in the book, as a narrator so he himself can enter the story and

use powerful ideas that they believe will move their readers and relate to them so they become engaged in the words written. William Shakespeare and Joseph Conrad were amazing writers of their times and even though their works were written almost 300 years apart, both, Othello and Heart of Darkness, have coinciding themes. The major theme that both Shakespeare and Conrad tackled was racism and the concept of whites versus blacks. The play Othello tells the story of a black general by the name of

Conrad himself was a member of imperial culture and utilized his own experiences he gained as a seamen in Congo and the Malay Archipelago when he wrote his ‘Heart of Darkness’. While writing ‘Nostromo’ Conrad was aware of the politics of the world’s great powers, and his text was shaped by the pervasive ideologies of the time. ‘Heart of Darkness’ includes four-month of Conrad in Congo, and his command of a Congo River steamboat. Conrad experienced and saw the violence

even though they were just trying to protect themselves from more harm. Conrad uses Marlow’s visit to the Company’s Offices to describe how different native Africans were treated compared to the Europeans. Marlow was appalled with the conditions around the Company offices. Marlow described the company’s accountant wearing such nice clothes while the savages were dying slowly, working hard though malnourished. Another example Conrad portrays savagery in the novel but does not regard it as savagery was