Heart of darkness.
نویسنده
چکیده
F or me, the word " evil " is somewhat of an abstraction. Having led a protected life, one of only a few occasions on which I have seen something resembling evil was when the Twin Towers fell on September 11th. Evil is the intent of harm and deliberate violation of basic moral and ethical codes. Evil is now woven into our culture, something that, in recent times, probably became more apparent (and popular) when President Reagan called the Soviets " evil " and, later, with Mr. Bush extending this concept to the " axis of evil. " Invasion and domination by conquering forces are explicitly evil, as we have learned by how the Spanish (and we Americans) treated our native populations in the Americas. Heart of Darkness by Jo-seph Conrad recounts the evils that Belgians brought upon the Congo (the same story, transposed to our involvement in Viet-nam, was used by Francis Ford Coppola in Apocalypse Now). Conrad implied that darkness lies in all of our hearts and that we are all capable of evil. Evil loomed over all of us during the cold war (but without overtly manifesting itself) and is now omnipresent in popular culture. Actor Mike Myers ridiculed it when he portrayed Dr. Evil in the silly Austin Powers movies. Evil is a mostly male behavior and a rite of passage in many groups (ie, gangs) and societies. The concept of evil is inseparable from religion; the forces of good and evil are always at battle with each other, particularly in our Western beliefs. Evil is human, and when we perceive some animal acts as such, it is just a projection of our own morals. In his book, Evil: An Investigation, 1 Lance Morrow speaks of micro and macro evil using as examples rape and genocide, respectively. Although evil resides in all of us, most well-balanced individuals control their urges and nothing comes of it. Evil can creep inadvertently into someone , as William Peter Blatty showed us in his book (and, later, in the movie directed by William Friedkin), The Exorcist. Evil can be highly efficient and bureaucratic, as with the Nazis or the Soviet Gulags or the killing of the Congolese by King Leopold II of Belgium (again portrayed in Heart of Darkness). The word " evil " was probably coined during the Middle Ages from the Old English " yfel " and/or the …
منابع مشابه
The Symptoms of a Heart of Darkness
In Heart of Darkness, Conrad appears to construct a symptomatic narrative a narrative which is, itself, intended to be read as a collection of symptoms indicating an underlying historical agent. This symptomatic approach may be read as extending through every aspect of the novella, from characterisation to Conrad's use of metaphor. Symptoms are subjective abnormalities in the status quo, observ...
متن کاملJourney Into “The Heart of Darkness” REDUX
With the publication of The Psychology of Genocide, Massacres, and Extreme Violence: Why “Normal” People Come to Commit Atrocities, Donald Dutton, a distinguished professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, joins Joseph Conrad, Francis Ford Coppola, and a host of professional peers as a commentator on the nature and origins of human evil. Dutton's volume, however, is neither ...
متن کاملHeart of Darkness
Significant literature has an impact on the reader. Reading the novella Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad as a young boy rose emotions comparable to those I felt when losing a patient after percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL) as a grown up. The case of a 37-year-old woman with bilateral staghorn and a fatal outcome after PCNL is presented and alternatives are discussed.
متن کامل"Unspeakable Secrets": The Ideology of Landscape in Conrad's "Heart of Darkness"
perience pushed a little (and only very little) beyond the actual facts of the case."2 Yet, there is equally a highly important sense in which the Congo of Heart of Darkness is not the Congo of any history book. That is to say, the apparently innocent activity of source-hunting masks a number of serious methodological problems. Perhaps the most important of these can be broached by invoking Con...
متن کاملThe Power of Geographical Visualizations
Now when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all the glories of exploration. At that time there were many blank spaces on the earth and when I found one that looked particularly inviting on a map (but they all look that) I would put my finger on it and say, ‘When I grow up I will go there’. (Joseph Co...
متن کاملذخیره در منابع من
با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید
برای دانلود متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید
ثبت ناماگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید
ورودعنوان ژورنال:
- AJNR. American journal of neuroradiology
دوره 33 9 شماره
صفحات -
تاریخ انتشار 2012