Creative Blog 1: Technology and Conrad

Technology is what allows some to feel superior to others. In Conrad's Heart of Darkness, the Europeans believed that they were superior and more civilized than the Africans. This was not because of their race, but because they were able to overpower the Africans. And the reason the Europeans were able to overpower the Africans is because the Europeans had more advanced technology and weapons. The Europeans had large ships and guns while the Africans only had row boats and knives. Had the technologies been switched, there would have no way for the Europeans to defeat the Africans and the Africans may have even attacked and enslaved the Europeans. Even today, it comes down to which countries have the most powerful weapons. Once one country had nuclear weapons, then the other countries started getting them too so that they could compete. But all of this technology doesn't really help anyone in the long run. There is a book called Obernewtyn by Isobelle Carmody that takes place a few hundred years after nuclear weapons have essentially destroyed the planet, making certain areas uninhabitable and causing mankind to regress back to the use of horses and candle light. A girl asks her old friend about the Beforetimers, referring to those who lived before the nuclear destruction. The man responds by saying, "'tis my feeling they was just mighty clever people--too clever for their own good," (Carmody 128). Humans really are too clever for their own good. Most of the grief, death, and destruction in the world is caused by things and technologies that humans themselves invented such as cars and guns. Humans survived thousands of years without these things and they do more harm than good, not just to humans, but also to the environment.

Conformity and Kafka Essay Introduction Paragraph

Conformity, whether good or bad, is a part of everyday life. There are two types of conformity: unconscious or conscious. Conforming without realising that you are conforming is more dangerous because you believe that you are contolling your actions when, in reality, you are being influenced by another force. Being forced to do something does not mean that you are conforming; conformity happens when you do something unconsciously that follows a certain trend, or when you do something because you feel pressured. Kafka and Conrad both explore conformity in abstract ways, taking it to the extremes.

Conformity and Kafka

There are two main forms of conformity. One is when you don't want to do something, such as smoking or drinking, but you do it anyway in order to fit in with a certain group of people. The other is when you do something without realizing it, such as dressing a certain way, because you have been influenced or pressured. The second is much more unconscious than the first. Gregor demonstrates the second because his family is what pressures him into working as hard as he does. In Heart of Darkness, the Europeans conform to the wilderness and freedom of Africa. This is also more like the second type of conformity because the Europeans did not mind giving up their civilized ways and they did not even realize that they were doing it. The Europeans continued to believe that they were helping the Africans become more civilized; Marlow is the only one who seems to realize how much the Europeans have actually conformed to savagry. The Europeans conform and then they go to extremes; similarly, Gregor also conforms to his society and goes to the extreme by turning into an insect.

Graphic Novel questions pg. 1014

1. The illustrations do not protray Gregor in a very grotesque way. The fact that Gregor is drawn with a human head greatly takes away from his transformation and undermines my original picture of him. I don't think that Kafka ever intended for Gregor to be part human and part bug. If Gregor did still have a human head in Metamorphosis, the family would probably not have been as disgusted by his appearance and then would have been more likely to talk to him. The illustrations are in black and white to make everything seem more primitive, depressing, and to represent the two dimensional characters in the story.

4. The faces of the family are caricatures like Gregor and they actually appear more grotesque to me than Gregor's face does. Perhaps this is meant to reflect their inner personalities, of which Gregor's is the most considerate.

Heart of Darkness and Metamorphosis

Gregor's ridiculous and unrealistic reaction to his to transformation is due to the society that he lives in and the life he has been trained to live. Gregor has been raised to conform to his society and he has lived every day in a robotic routine dictated by the society that has never been broken. Therefore, he doesn't know how to react when something happens to him that isn't controlled by his society. Furthermore, he has neglected his own personal needs for so long and essentially been an ant, with his only purpose being his work. So while his body was human, his mind was like a bug. But now, his body has turned into a bug and, although his mind is still thinking like a bug who has to work, he is unable to control basic movement of his legs, meaning that his mind is rebelling.

Heart of Darkness #6.1

Although Kurtz's painting is meant to represent justice, with the woman bringing light and seeing everything equally since she is blindfolded, Conrad uses it as an ironic symbol. It can be assumed that Marlow would disagree with the painting's intended meaning because of the frequent sarcasm that he uses to tell his story. In the context of the story, the woman no longer represents justice, but she instead represents the white Europeans who are taking over Africa and enslaving the natives. The Europeans claim to be bringing light, knowlege, and civilization to the darkness and, in some cases, may actually believe it. The woman in the painting who represents the Europeans is blindfolded, meaning that the Europeans do not realize and see the true evil nature of their actions. Furthermore, the sinister look that the light casts on the woman's face reveals that although the Europeans believe they are doing good by enslaving the Africans and "civilizing" them, they are in fact bringing out their evilness and increasing their savagery.

Heart of Darkness #2.1

Marlow starts off with an account of London in old times because he wants to compare London to Africa. He does this by saying that England used to be uncivilized just like Africa and, and so the Romans colonized England just like the English colonized Africa. The civilized cultures always think that it is their duty and their right to "civilize" the ignorant and less capable cultures. The civilized cultures think that they know what is best and so they ignore the protests of the cultures they are destroying.