The Colonizer and the Colonized Essay

Words: 1899
Pages: 8
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Angelo Sepulveda Jr.
03/14/08

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After the American Revolution ended in 1783, other colonies of the Americas began to win their freedom from the European homeland. After much of the European presence had been lifted from the continents, Europe began to focus much of their imperial power on areas close to home, their southern neighbors in Africa. Much of the same methods that governed rule in the new world were used: it was to convert those who they had been trading with for centuries to European philosophies on religion and government and to plunder their lands of natural resources and precious materials. Not much ever changes when it comes to colonization, just the oppressors and the oppressed. However, there are several …show more content…
He died a broken man, and with him, his traditions and his people’s way of life, died with him… In Heart of Darkness, we see a different view of Africa, one that seems as if the continent is in need of improvement, and in need of enlightenment. Conveyed as a story within a story, the novel has 2 narrators: an unnamed sailor aboard the Nellie is the main narrator who is telling the story, and Captain Marlow, the main character of the story that he is telling to his crew, including the narrator. By the time Marlow tells the story, he has the experience of how the African continent brings out the darkness in all men, and how he conquered that said darkness. The main difference between this story and Things Fall Apart is that Marlow ONLY shows the barbaric side of the African people. Almost never does he try to understand the people the people his company, The Belgian Limited Company for Trade in the Upper Congo (pg. 119), are subjugating and pillaging. It’s as if he feels that the people of the land are without a sense of order and civilization, as when he calls his own Congo crewmen “cannibals (pg.42)” on more then one occasion, as well as calling his helms man a “fool-nigger” (pg. 56). He even comes close to calling them inhuman (pg.44)I mean, how high and mighty can someone hold themselves and call one of his own crew such a slanderous name? He clearly has no respect and no trust in the people of Africa. And it seems to me that Marlow agrees with the cruel methods
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