An Analysis of Kurtz in the Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness tells the tale of a man named Marlow and his quest to find the almost mythical figure of Kurtz. Kurtz is a station chief working for a Dutch trading company at the very end of the Congo river. Kurtz, along with the other station chiefs who are working at various stations along the Congo river, are charged to harvest the plentiful natural resources of the large African continent, primarily ivory. Marlow, who is an experienced sailor and river boat pilot, is charged by the company that employs Kurtz to lead an expedition into the heart of the African Congo to find Kurtz and figure out why he has stopped shipping ivory. Marlow eventually finds his man, only to discover that Kurtz has slipped into madness. Kurtz dies on the trip back out of Africa, only to utter his last words, â€Å"The horror! The horror! †. Kurtz has also scribbled all over his report which he was to turn in to his superiors on the situation and people of the African continent. The scribbling read â€Å"EXTERMINATE ALL THE BRUTES†. These two phrases hold important meaning in Heart of Darkness, as it describes how Kurtz really felt at the end of his journey. Kurtz was described several times to Marlow before and during the trip as a different type of man. This colonial period was famous for the hypocrisy of the European Empires, who in their double edged mission of spreading the culture of the white man while harvesting resources of the foreign lands of the world, horribly failed on the former and were astonishingly successful at the latter. Kurtz was supposed to be a different kind of man. He was described to Marlow as being a true humanitarian, a man who would not only turn a profit for the company but at the same time uplift and civilize the natives of Africa. Marlow was immensely impressed with Kurtz and was eager to finally see the man for himself. What Marlow found couldn’t have been further from the truth. When Marlow finally see’s Kurtz and his compound for the first time, he’s shocked to find that the man is almost held in reverence by the villagers. He has also taken an apparent mate from the villagers. Marlow soon discovers that Kurtz used his arrival on the boat and his possession of firearms as a means to awe the villagers into accepting him as their demi god. Marlow eventually finds Kurtz, who is by now extremely sick both physically and mentally, crawling along a jungle path at night towards a village celebration. Marlow cuts him off and decides that if Kurtz won’t go with him of his own free will, he will kill him right then and there. Kurtz relents and allows Marlow to take him back to civilization. The next morning Marlow loads Kurtz onto the boat and they begin their journey back to Europe. It is during this trip on the river out of Africa that Kurtz, who is slowly dying, has a moment of clarity. His last words are â€Å" The horror! The horror! †. These words are symbolic of what Kurtz felt at realizing that he had become even more â€Å"savage† than the so called savages. Kurtz entrusts his papers that he was writing to Marlow. The papers were intended originally to be a humanitarian paper on the good Kurtz had done for the villagers. Scribbled across the papers now, were the words â€Å"EXTERMINATE ALL BRUTES! †. These words are an irony for the mission that Kurtz intended to fulfill. His humanitarian mission had degenerated into a mission of violence and exploitation. He no longer intended to help the people of Africa, he intended to kill them and take as much from them as they could. Kurtz in the end revealed in his final words what becomes of a man who willingly walked into a new land thinking he could be a savior to a people he thought beneath him. In reality, he ended up turning into the true definition of a â€Å"savage†. He became a person who killed with no mercy in order to take what he wanted. In his moment of clarity, he realized the horror of the what he had become. His mission of exterminating the brutes had been successful until his sad, lonely death.

The 1929 Great Depression How and Why it Happened Essay

The 1929 Great Depression How and Why it Happened - Essay Example Seeking to understand the ramifications of the Great Depression, this essay seeks to provide a comprehensive analysis of the precursors to the worst economic crisis in American history. In addition to exploring the effects of the Great Depression on American society, we will explore the affects of this event on global trade, politics, the development of Nazism in Germany, and its effects on the Soviet Union. The terms â€Å"Great Depression† and â€Å"Great Crash† will be used synonymously throughout this essay since they refer simultaneously to the same event: the economic collapse of 1929 and the ensuing economic and social crises for much of the Western developed world (McNeill 1963). In an attempt to provide a comprehensive summary of an event with international consequences and geopolitical reverberations, this essay be structured in the following manner: 1) the Great Depression of 1929 will be explained and analyzed on a global scale, looking at the tangible effects of this event on the United States and the countries of Europe (both democratic and authoritarian/capitalist and proto-communist); 2) parallels with this event and the modern economic crisis will be explored primarily through a prescriptive lens, employing the complete and definitive work on the subject, John Kenneth Galbraith’s The Great Crash. Reasons for the Great Crash/Depression will be discussed with reference to how we can learn from lessons from the past; 3) finally, we conclude with a synopsis of the research explored with an eye to the main causes of this event and their ramifications. Understanding that the Depression was an international event with global repercussions, the follo wing will analyze the varied impact of this economic collapse on both the United States and the countries of Europe. In the first four years of the Great Depression, world trade fell by an astonishing 60%. As an example of the decline in economic

Did state expansion incur diminishing returns (Lane) or exploit Essay

Did state expansion incur diminishing returns (Lane) or exploit economies of scale - Essay Example It has been argued that the emergence of nation state was basically an attempt to achieve the required level of economic growth. It is therefore generally believed that the consistent increase in the growth of economies of Europe was mostly a direct result of the emergence of nation state due to which different institutional changes took place. It is therefore generally believed that the economic growth of the Europe is mainly due to this notion of Nation State. What is also however, significant to note that economic theory often ignored the use of violence and organized crime and war to achieve the objectives of economic growth? According to Lane (1954) the use of violence created economies of scale against those enterprises which were using the same violent techniques or were engaged in achieving so called territorial monopoly. It is therefore important to discuss as to whether the expansion of State in new territories is essential for the exploitation of economies of scales or it actually result into diminishing returns. This paper will therefore discuss this notion and will present a well balanced argument as to whether the State expansion actually results into achieving the economies of scale or not. It has been argued that the closer connection between the war and the development of nation state started to emerge during the 15th century. This was the period in European history when most of the countries witnessed centralization of the political structures within their countries. Different countries have started to develop centralized governments and the overall concept of nation building started to emerge. What is also important to note that with the development of the centralized power structures within the societies, the overall political power of the central authorities increased too and with that power came the more power to control the economic lives of the citizens of the state also? Much of this

Thermodynamics Speech or Presentation Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Thermodynamics - Speech or Presentation Example For instance, a rotating flywheel in motion possesses a ‘rotational energy’ which may also be treated a kinetic energy. Once a brake is applied to stop it, then the flywheel comes to rest the moment its kinetic energy is converted to potential energy which the device stores from the previous state of motion. First of all, an internal energy of a thermodynamic system pertains to the sum of all the microscopic energy forms. So, even if the fluid is at rest in a tank, it may possess an internal energy such as with respect to its position in the tank (i.e. altitude/height from the ground), its mass, and the effect of gravity ‘g’ which altogether makes a potential energy for the fluid. Q1.4c A m3 of air at B bar is expanded in a cylinder until the volume is C m3. Calculate the final pressure and the work done if the expansion is polytropic and n = 1.4. If the temperature before expansion is DÂ ° C and Cv = 245 J/kg-K, Find the heat energy transferred during this process. Use R = 810 J/kg-K and draw a P/V diagram for the process. Use your individual values for the above calculations. Fuels of low quality may contribute to rough engine operation. When considering upgrade in the fuel standard to improve engine performance, one must take into account the fuel characteristics which should be reduced or rid of excessive high or low volatility, contaminants, formation of gum, and inadequate octane. Basically, thermal efficiency refers to the difference between the energy content of the fuel consumed and the useful power extracted from the engine. A good thermal efficiency is one with high compression ratio and where fuels used are greatly calorific or at energy much larger than engine power under extraction so that this difference is equivalent to the energy of combustion that is converted to mechanical work which

Reasonable expectation of privacy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Reasonable expectation of privacy - Essay Example It is also the starting point of analysis in determining whether or not a violation of the Fourth Amendment has occurred (Jones, 1997). The Constitutional principle reposed in the Fourth Amendment that protects the right to privacy of a citizen against unreasonable searches and seizures is triggered when (1) the citizen has a manifested subjective expectation of privacy, (2) and one that society is willing to accept as objectively reasonable. California v. Greenwood (486 U.S. 35 [1988]). However, the Supreme Court has come up with a long line of cases carving out exceptions to the rule and stating the circumstances where no search occurred as there is no violation of reasonable expectation of privacy. One of the first circumstances is that of â€Å"false friends†. This is embodied in the case of Hoffa v. United States (385 U.S. 293 [1966]), where the defendant had made some disclosures to a person he thought to be a union official, but was in fact a government agent. Hoffa claimed that it was an illegal search and claimed his reasonable expectation of privacy. The argument did not hold, however, as the Supreme Court found that the government agent â€Å"was in the suite by invitation and every conversation which he heard was either directed to him or knowingly carried on in his presence.† (page 302). The second circumstance given by the Supreme Court is abandoned property, meaning that there can be no reasonable expectation of privacy where the evidence has been dumped in a public place and law enforcement agents have managed to retrieve it. A good example is a gun that has been thrown in a garbage bin, and thus leaving it exposed to the general public or to a definite third party. That evidence can be rightly used against him. The third circumstance is physical attributes on display. The courts have held that there cannot possibly be an expectation of privacy when what is sought to be excluded as evidence is physical characteristics that

BUS COM WK3 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

BUS COM WK3 - Essay Example In the article the authors conducted a specific type of study in which they tracked for about 60 families and their hundred above children. They inquired about the effects the divorce had produced on them. They found out that the boys of the divorced families do not have any goal; they do not want to grow in life, while the girls of the divorced families do not trust other men in their lives. They suffer from the special type of fear in which they fear from bounding themselves in a family with a man. This fear is known as the Sleepers affect. In short with the data the authors tried to prove the negative effects of the divorce on the children. The declared that the divorce is traumatizing and it produces severe effects on the lives of the affected families. I totally disagree with both the authors and their statistics. It is just that they wanted to show the negative side of the issue. The data was not neutrally collected. Only the negative theme was extracted. The authors presented a graph in their study in which they tried to show that most of children suffer emotional and behavioral problems after the marriage of their parents. According to the data presented it shows that about 25% of children of such families suffer from mental disorders. They did not show in the graph the prior state of the children of such families. It must be possible that the children were in great stress due to the constant family conflicts of marriage and after divorced their mental state was improved due to living alone or with the single parent. The authors also showed by statistics that approx 66% of the women from the age of 9 to 23 suffered from the sleeper effect. They were too afraid to bind themselves in any relation. Also the memories of the divorce of their parents never helped them to make a stable relation. The greater flaw in the study is that these women might be afraid of the poor marriages not the divorces. They

North Coat Town- Robert Gray Analysis Essay Example for Free

North Coat Town- Robert Gray Analysis Essay The two utilities both represent the need to use the restroom and his hunger from not eating anything, as he could not afford anything. Just from stanza 1, readers can get the idea that this man is a hitchhiker. This demonstrates the life of these hitchhikers and how they would get through life day after day. In Stanza 2, the man washes himself up at a tap where he steps into mud, as there is always mud at taps. ‘Vandals Lavatory’, Grey uses the word ‘Vandal’ as he does not appreciate people vandalizing the streets to ruin the beauty of the Australian Coast Lines. The persona flushes the toilet and gets a chill whilst flushing, it’s the use of an actual toilet that gives him this chill as hitchhikers if not able to find a nearby toilet will often go in a bush. In Stanza 3, the man eats a floury apple, which he supposedly found in a supermarket bin where you find ruined goods. Grey uses personification ‘At this kerb sand crawls by’ to demonstrate that it was almost like the path was covered in sand moving slowly from the light wind about. Car after car now-its like a boxer warming up with the heavy bag, spitting air’ the cars on the street are busy going somewhere. The use of simile is comparing the cars to a boxing match, how dangerous and violent of each car passing is like a punch by a boxer. In Stanza 4, a car slows down and the man chases after it getting himself a ride. Two cars going shooting. Plastic pennants are everywhere, totally artificial and suggest high pressure selling by city petrol station. A dog is trotting down the road and someone else is hosing down their pavement, demonstrates the ordinary town life. Our image flaps in shop fronts’ Grey uses onomatopoeia. They ‘past the pink ’Tropicana’ motel (stucco with sea shells)’, recalling the Shell station in the first Stanza. As they drive outta town they pass bulldozed acres probably the site of new infrastructure being built. They’re changing the area to look more like ‘California’. ‘Pass an Abo, not attempting to hitch, outside town’, the aboriginal lives outside of town and feels no need to try and catch a ride as there is no point since no one would consider giving them a lift.