Civilization and Nature

Civilization and Nature

Students Name

Institutional Affiliations

Civilization and nature

Differences between civilization and nature

Civilization and nature are presented as two different themes in the Heart of Darkness. Civilization in the book is represented by the Whites and nature by Africans.  Joseph Conrad demonstrates the experience of Whites in Africa. The nature and the persons in Africa challenged the traditional western principles causing opposition (Achebe, 2016).  Civilization proposes that an individual should be capable of staring into the dark chaos of nature and making sense of it. There are differences between civilization and nature. The most obvious one is that nature consists of trees, wildlife, and silence, while civilization consists of buildings, noise, and people. This is clearly shown by the journey of Marlow in the jungle. Also, according to Conrad, natural forces have a will of their own, and civilization can change as shown by Marlow who by the end of the journey was all mixed up by the wilderness and started questioning himself with questions such as “Is civilization wild?”

The simple way of life, in contrast with technology and development, is another difference. The technology-enabled the colonists to have the supremacy to abuse the lands for profit. They stole ivory from Africans and treated them like slaves who were sold and the unhealthy ones starved to death. Heart of Darkness illuminates the natives as cannibals but had higher ethical standards compared to the civilized raiders (Joseph, 2017).  Though they were treated inhumanly, they did not stoop so low as to threaten the White’s lives. The author also uses words such as cannibals to describe nature. This implies that nature is uncivilized in contrast with civilization. He also used a word such as “wild” and “intense” to describe the people in Africa as he compared them to the Whites, who he described as affluent and a desirable race. This implies that civilization is desirable compared to nature

Positive qualities seen in society and nature.

Nature is full of exploration and originality as compared to civilization. This is why the European Whites go to Africa for exploration. They can discover that there are very many mineral resources that they exploit to make a profit. Also, nature cannot be controlled by humans, but civilization can. For instance, according to the book, the weather cannot be controlled by the people, but the weather can control the people.

The society has some positive qualities such as determination, as presented in Heart of Darkness. Determination, for instance, since society was determined to prosper and develop. This was one of the reasons why the Europeans decided to exploit resources and even went to extremes of selling slaves to get money (Firchow, 2015). Ambition was also a quality whereby society was very ambitious as they wanted to get as much wealth as possible for themselves.  Human society may also have a quality of power. This is the case whereby the Europeans are in control and rule over Africans. They rule by dictation whereby the Africans are not given freedom.

Nature, as presented by Conrad, is enduring since the Africans in Congo did not attack the whites despite all that they did to them (Joseph, 2017). Unlike the Whites, they did not cut off their necks and torture them for all the pain and suffering that they had put them through. Nature is also accommodating since Africans accepted the Whites in their countries and allowed them to mine and farm on their land.  Hard work is another quality of nature, as shown by the book Heart of Darkness. The Africans worked very hard for the Europeans as they were slaves and worked in the farms for only little pay, such as being given useless ivory for them to purchase food (Vodenko,  Cherkesova, Shvachkina,  Fateeva, & Erosheva, 2016). Nature may also be considered as innocent and unsophisticated since it simple and does not entail much as depicted in the book by the simple ways of living that the Africans had before civilization.

Implications for human happiness

Happiness is one of the most valuable aims of humans has its implications as denoted by Conrad. Happiness is related to lower physical complications and better-coping abilities (Petribú, Zilberman, Torres & Cantilino, 2015).  As Kurtz dies, he gets to think of all the things he did as he assisted the colonizers. He was evil, and he realized the absolute truth about his actions in his life. He did this thinking he was making himself happy, but in reality, he hurt so many Africans. The Africans from Congo were not satisfied since they were in bad physical condition and were not being given enough food. They were also mistreated and overworked, which reduced their coping abilities.

References

Achebe, C. (2016). An image of Africa: racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. The Massachusetts Review, 57(1), 14-27.

Firchow, P. E. (2015). Envisioning Africa: Racism and Imperialism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. University Press of Kentucky.

Joseph, C. (2017). Heart of Darkness. Strelbytskyy Multimedia. Machado, L., Tavares,

H., Petribú, K., Zilberman, M., Torres, R. F., & Cantilino, A. (2015). Happiness and health in psychiatry: what are their implications?. Archives of Clinical Psychiatry (São Paulo), 42(4), 100-110.

Vodenko, K. V., Cherkesova, E. Y., Shvachkina, L. A., Fateeva, S. V., & Erosheva, I. Y. (2016). The Specifics of Social and Cultural Determination of the Current Economic Activity. International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, 6(1S), 206-210.