The Character Of Conrad And Cormac Conrads Heart Of Darkness

The Unknown Character Limited in their ability to represent the character’s conditions without explicit statements, authors cannot elucidate each event and character’s thought while continuing to hold the reader’s attention. Therefore, many authors utilize the landscape of the story to parallel a character or group of characters. In Heart of Darkness, author Joseph Conrad personifies the landscape as a fluid character. Consequently, as the reader begins to further comprehend the landscape’s meaning, Marlow’s understanding of the people around him becomes more clear. Likewise, Cormac McCarthy, in his novel The Road, utilizes the ashy remains of the forest to parallel the destruction of society due to the apocalyptic event. Both Joseph†¦show more content†¦Marlow first observes this unseen force when he watches the French warship â€Å"firing onto the continent† as if there were someone or something to kill. He remarks that, despite their efforts, â€Å"n othing could happen† (Conrad 11). The French attack the force, one that would reappear throughout the novella, because they do not understand it. Conrad previously set up this imagery of confused Europeans when Marlow visited the company building in London. He draws the reader to a colorful map of Africa, broken into sections based on colonization. Conrad describes the yellow section he sends Marlow into as the dead center, through which cuts a deadly snake. For Marlow, like most of the men who ventured into the Congo, â€Å"the snake had charmed [him]† (Conrad 6). Yellow represents deception, disease, and fear, and with the image of the deadly snake slithering through the center, Conrad makes an allusion to the Bible: the devil using Africa to infiltrate the Europeans. They are confused by the forces of Africa- native plants, animals, culture, and people they had never experienced before- and become hostile, consumed by the forces of evil that stem from the chaos. This confusion sets up the tone for the rest of his novella. Out of the uncontrollable chaos of the French fleet attacking the continent rises the destruction of the Congo: the pillaging, burning, fighting, and terror the resides in both the Africans and Europeans. Marlow also struggles to describe the landscapeShow MoreRelatedThe Landscape In Heart Of Darkness And Cormac Mccarthys The Road2029 Words   |  9 Pagesthe characters’ conditions without explicit statements, authors cannot elucidate each event and character’s thought while continuing to hold the reader’s attention. Therefore, many authors utilize the landscape of the story to parallel a character or group of characters. Both Joseph Conrad, author of Heart of Darkness, and Cormac McCarthy, author of The Road, manipulate the landscape to represent the human condition. In Heart of Darkness, Conrad personifies the landscape as a fluid character, so