The Binary Oppositions in Joseph Conrad's Novel Heart of Darkness

The novel Heart of Darkness is regarded as one of Joseph Conrad's highly skilled works and seen as an important tale written between the years of 1898 - 1899, and also viewed as an assault on imperialism and unethical behaviors of the European colonizers in Africa in the nineteenth century. The novel displays the author's humanity towards the crimes of the colonists and imperialists throughout the world. In Heart of Darkness, Conrad shows the cruelty of colonialism in Africa through his major character, Charlie Marlow, who realizes the cruel manners of Belgian colonialism during his journey to the Congo looking for the European ivory agent, Kurtz. This novel is a combination of two opposite things. It exposes the author's viewpoint regarding the ethics of the Europeans and the Africans. This research concentrates on the binary oppositions in Heart of Darkness through Marlow's journey to Africa and exposes Marlow's struggle between his human nature and his beliefs and replies whether his conflict will be effective and bring good results or negative.

London and Cloisterham as an Imperial ‘Heart of Darkness’ in Dickens’s The Mystery of Edwin Drood

The article examines Dickens’s last novel in the context of British imperialism, contraband opium trade in nineteenth-century China under the armed protection of the British government, and the Opium Wars (1839–1842 and 1856–1860). Although Dickens has often been discussed as one of the authors who approved of his country’s imperial domination, his last novel foregrounds a critique of colonial practices. The atavistic character of imperialism takes its moral and psychological toll not merely somewhere in the dominions, colonies, protectorates, and other territories but also ‘at home’ on the domestic ground. In The Mystery of Edwin Drood London has the face of a dingy and dark opium den or the ominous headquarters of the Heaven of Philanthropy with the professing philanthropists in suits of black. Moreover, the article seeks to discuss deep-rooted evil and darkness associated in the novel with an ecclesiastical town in connection with Protestant missionaries’ close collaboration with opium traders in the Celestial Empire. Portraying John Jasper’s moral degradation enhanced by the drug and the corruption of the ecclesiastical town, Dickens gothicises opium, and by implication, opium trade pointing to its double-edged sword effect: sullying and debasing both the addict and the trafficker. The symbolic darkness of the opium den and the churchly Cloisterham reflects the inherent evil latent in any unbridled colonial expansion and Dickens’s anti-colonial purpose.

“. . .delivered from the lie of being truth”: The Affective Force of Disinformation, Stickiness and Dissensus in Randy Ribay’s Patron Saints of Nothing

Waged in 2016, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs has claimed over 20,000 lives according to human rights groups. The Duterte administration’s own count is significantly lower: around 6,000. The huge discrepancy between the government’s official count and that of arguably more impartial organizations about something as concretely material as body count is symptomatic of how disinformation is central to the Duterte administration and how it can sustain the approval of the majority of the Philippine electorate. We suggest that Duterte’s populist politics generates what Boler and Davis (2018) call “affective feedback loops,” which create emotional and informational ecosystems that facilitate smooth algorithmic governance. We turn to Patron Saints of Nothing, a recently published novel by Randy Ribay about a Filipino-American who goes back to the Philippines to uncover the truth behind the death of his cousin. Jay’s journey into the “heart of darkness” as a “hyphenated” individual (Filipino-American) allows him access to locally networked subjectivities but not its affective entanglements. Throughout the novel, he encounters numerous versions of the circumstances of Jun’s demise and the truth remains elusive at the end of the novel. We argue that despite the constant distortion of fact and fiction in the novel, what remains relatively stable or “sticky” throughout the novel are the letters from Jun Reguero that Jay carries with him back to the Philippines. We suggest that these letters can potentially serve as a form of “dissensus” that challenges the constant redistribution of the sensible in the novel.

The meaning of losing a child in older adults: a qualitative study

Background After losing their child, elderly parents look for a meaning in this phenomenon. This meaning comes out from their experiences, and their responses to and actions in life are shaped based on this meaning. Therefore, this study was conducted with the aim of “understanding the meaning of losing a child in older adults.” Methods This qualitative study was conducted using conventional content analysis method. Using semi-structured face-to-face interviews, data were collected from 15 older adults who had experienced of losing their adult child. Data analysis was performed according to the steps proposed by Graneheim and Lundman, 2004. To prove the trustworthiness of the data, credibility, dependability, confirmability and transferability were used. Results The age range of participants was between 61 and 83 years and 73.3% of them were female. The two main categories of “tasting the bitter flavor of life” and “searching for a positive meaning in losing a child” together with the theme of “finding hope in the heart of darkness” were extracted from the participants’ experiences. Conclusions Despite the grief of losing a child, which had cast a dark shadow over the parents’ lives, the child’s liberation from worldly sufferings, his/her presence in a better world, and being hopeful about the grace of God had caused the elderly parents to find hope in the heart of darkness. After identifying the parents with a deceased child, they should be helped through psychological counseling and care of the healthcare team so that they can adapt to this situation by finding a positive meaning in losing their child.

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE MODERNIST NOVEL

This book is intended as an introduction to the modernist novel, primarily for the students and scholars of the English language and literature. Four major novelists – Joseph Conrad, D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf – have been chosen to exemplify the stylistic features, aesthetic preoccupations and thematic concerns of the works of fiction written in English in the early decades of the twentieth century. The methodological principle used in this study is multilevel. First, these four authors are analysed by referring to their essays, philosophical treatises, prefaces to their novels and other nonfictional works where they define their poetics and their artistic goals in their own terms. After this, since form is such a major concern of the modernist novel, formal innovations and narrative strategies of each of these authors are discussed at some length. Finally, a single novel is chosen to represent each author, and it is analysed in detail. Heart of Darkness, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Mrs Dalloway are widely recognized within the oeuvre of these novelists as some of their greatest artistic achievements. Lawrence’s novella St Mawr is a lesser-known work; however, I would argue that F. R. Leavis’s praise of this short piece as “an astonishing work of genius” still stands. The same as with the other three novels, its inclusion in the study is justified by the valuable insights it provides about the characteristics of modernist fiction and modernist art in general.

Literature as an Auxiliary Science in Teaching Geography

The article discusses the status of literature in teaching geography. Like cartography, literature maps the space and assigns proper names which allow us to see the places of “condensed, multiplied time” (Claudio Magris). Literary maps bind topography with history and thus realise a geopolitical project of “thinking of place, time and action as coherent unity” (Karl Schlögel). Such literary names as Conrad’s “heart of darkness” or mare nostrum, mare monstrum from Dariusz Czaja’s essay, in geography didactics can reveal the drama of “building up of land and history” (Magris) and thanks to this, a map used in the didactic process can lead to cathartic experience, i.e. it can sharpen, activate and sensitize the pupils’ eye.