Symbolic Use Of Ivory In

& # 8216 ; Heart Of Darkness & # 8217 ; Essay, Research Paper

In Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad frequently uses obscure, ? muted? descriptions, go forthing a odds and ends of possible significances in the reader? s lap. One exclusion to this tendency is Conrad? s symbolic usage of tusk. Within the frame of the narrative, his mentions to tusk can evidently be seen as a representation of the white adult male? s greed. Towards the terminal of the book tusk comes to typify the seeping immorality that drips from the bosom of darkness.

It isn? Ts long before Conrad makes a commentary on the greed of the Whites. By the 37th page via Marlow associates them with a? false religion. ? He says that the work forces at the Central Station are, ? like a batch of faithless pilgrims bewitched inside a icky fencing. Pilgrims are normally people who travel to a holy topographic point, so why the pick of words? Conrad farther explains in the undermentioned lines when he says, ? The word? tusk? rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed.

You would believe they were praying to it. ? In their edacity the? pilgrims? have placed tusk as their God, a realisation that has greater significance towards the terminal of the book.

The significance of tusk Begins to travel off from greed and takes on a strictly evil intension as Marlow attacks those Black Marias of darkness: the Inner Station and Kurtz. Kurtz? s relationship with tusk seems to hold been reiterated by every company member through the class of the narrative. Of class Kurtz? harvested? more ivory than all the other Stationss combined, an

vitamin D therefore it about seems appropriate that Conrad would utilize extended tusk imagination in depicting Kurtz. Earlier, during his aside on Kurtz, Marlow says, ? The wilderness had patted him on the caput, and, behold, it was like a ball? an tusk ball? . By the clip that Kurtz is carried out on a stretcher the immorality has so overtaken him that, ? I could see the coop of his ribs all astir, the castanetss of his weaponries beckoning. It was as though an alive image of decease carved out of old tusk had been agitating its manus with threats at a motionless crowd of work forces made of dark and glistening bronze? . The immorality has now grown to embrace his full organic structure, and psyche. Kurtz? s lecherousness for tusk is recounted by the Russian. Once he threatened to hit the Russian, who was squirreling a little measure of tusk? ? because he could make so, and had a illusion for it, and there was nil on Earth to forestall him from killing whom he reasonably good pleased. ? The about god-like power that Kurtz wields is unbridled, salvage for disease.

In Heart of Darkness tusk plays a double function in significance. On one manus it is representative of evil and greed, and on the other, it is representative of the steps taken to get it in the first topographic point ( i.e. mistreatment of inkinesss ) . Conrad? s usage of tusk in order to typify darkness is besides in maintaining with his occasional reversal of the colourss usually associated with good and evil, white and black. Ivory as a stuff is one of the purest and whitest found in nature, while Kurtz? s psyche is strictly black.