Heart of Darkness – Decay Within a Society

The environments surrounding has a huge effect on the culture of the greater number of inhabitants. The indigenous scenery, which is holds an abundant amount of natural resources, is in a state of transition and the way the landscape is treated, directly relates to greed, narcism within the society, violence in a highly numbers populated area, particularly from developed countries. In Joseph Conrad’s book Heart of Darkness , Conrad represents the decay of the indigenous scenery as a metaphor to the decay within developed countries, specifically in England.
This decay is a direct result of the actions taken by the society within this indigenous scenery. Within the book Heart of Darkness greed is a immense description toward the English and the scenery that they inhabit. The English show a excessive rapacious desire for wealth and possessions . There greed and rapacious desire for health and possessions take them to the heart of the congo, where elephants are slaughtered for there tusks that are ivory. The ivory is considered a high commodity in England.
The ivory symbolizes greed and destructive nature of man and agents of the company are so opposed with obtaining ivory that they forget there morals , so called civilized ways. This representations of the greed over the ivory on the landscape can be seen in this quote found in the book Heart of Darkness “ to tear treasure out of the bowls of the landscape was there desire” (Conrad 110). The desire or greed over the land, and all the wealth, and possessions found in it, the effects that it brings upon the landscape can be proven from this statement found in the bible “ The greedy bring ruin to there households” (Psalms 10:3, NIV).

This decay in this indigenous scenery resulted though greed is a direct reason why its decaying The decay of the indigenous scenery within the book Heart of Darkness is a result of violence shown through developed countries specifically England in the book. The violence and cruelty depicted in Heart of Darkness escalate from acts of inhumanity committed against the natives of the Congo to unspeakable and undescribed horrors.
Kurtz who is representing European imperialists has systematically engaged in human plunder. The natives are seen chained by iron collars abut their necks, starved, beaten, subsisting on rotten hippo meat, forced into soul crushing and meaningless labor, and finally ruthlessly murdered. Beyond this, it is implied that Kurtz has had human sacrifices performed for him, and the reader is presented with the sight of a row of severed human heads impaled on posts leading to Kurtz’s cabin.
Conrad suggests that violence result when law is absent and man allows himself to be ruled by whatever brutal passions lie within him. Under such circumstances, anything is possible, and what Conrad sees emerging from the situation is the profound violence that lies at the heart of the human soul and results in the decay of the indigenous scenery “It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind—as is very proper for those who tackle a darkness”(Conrad 5).
This limitless violence that Krutz has witnessed forced upon the indigenous scenery within the society of the natives is a direct of the decay within the indigenous scenery of developed countries. Throughout the book Heart of Darkness narcism has a major effect on the indigenous scenery. The English have a narcissistic attitude in the Heart of Darkness. A narcissistic attitude is a person who is overly self-involved, and often vain and selfish. This narcissistic attitude has a prominent effect on the indigenous scenery.
While the English have become so utterly confident in there civilizations powers. In the book Heart of Darkness, the English enter the Congo thinking that they are civilized, because of there overly self involved, and vain and selfishness, they travel into the Congo taking ever considerable valuable natural resource such and destroying the indigenous scenery. In Congo, however, obsessed with ivory that renders him money, status, and power, the original, Kurtz transforms into a mercenary, evil madman, who “takes a high seat amongst the devils of the land”.
Krutz narcissistic attitude being overly self involved, and vain and selfishness takes a immense amount of ivory, killing large amounts of elephants, and killing all the people that got in his way “They would have been even more impressive, those heads on the stakes, if their faces had not been turned to the house”(Conrad 40) showing that a narcissistic attitude is a direct result of why the indigenous scenery is decayed.
This decay is a direct result of the actions taken by the society within this indigenous scenery. The indigenous scenery, which is a direct result of the natural resources before us on the earth , that is in a state of transition and the way the landscape is treated, directly relates to greed and over exceeding numbers of human beings, particularly from developed countries. Conrad represents the decay of the indigenous scenery as a absolute metaphor to the decay within developed countries, specifically in England.
These actions such as greed, violence, and narcissism taken by the developed countries causes the indigenous scenery to decay. Heart of Darkness – Result of decay on society Work Cited: “Heart of Darkness. ” SparkNotes. Ed. Joesph Conrad. SparkNotes, 1 Jan. 2012. Web. 24 Oct. 2012. . Conrad, Joesph. “Heart of Darkness. ” By Joseph Conrad. Search EText, Read Online, Study, Discuss. N. p. , July-Aug. 2012. Web. 24 Oct. 2012. . Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. New York: Knopf, 1993. Print.