Posted: February 13th, 2022

Heart of Darkness/Blood Diamond

Greed is the Root of All Evil Greed exists on the centre of evil on not solely a person degree, but in addition that of a communal and world degree. Contextually there’s a superficial alteration within the stimulus (Ivory vs. diamond) for greed and of world consciousness in the direction of the difficulty, though within the century that separates Joseph Conrad’s exploration of colonial regime in his novella Heart of Darkness and Edward Zwick’s post-colonial movie Blood Diamond, the values driving the key characters and factions from the totally different texts are comparably related.
In each texts, there are people showcasing main sides motivated by greed, obsessive about the stimulus that’s offered in both century. In Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the character ‘Kurtz’ is primarily stimulated by greed. His obsession with ivory was at an excessive the place foremost character ‘Marlow’ refers to his bodily look as “like a ball- an ivory ball” and as having an “ivory face. ” These respective simile and metaphors encapsulate how Kurtz had develop into gripped by ivory to the purpose the place it was taking on his very being.
This description that Kurtz is positioned in is carried via to his dying moments the place “The brown present ran swiftly out of the Heart of Darkness-Kurtz’s life was operating swiftly, too…” This oblique juxtaposition hyperlinks the concepts of Kurtz’s life with the Heart of Darkness, not being a bodily location, however an internalised nature representing Kurtz. These hyperlinks of the rapacious Kurtz to a being of pure immorality is an perception into the overtaken existence of greed inside people of evil.

In similarity, is ‘Colonel Coetzee’ from Zwick’s Blood Diamond. This particular person has a lust for wealth, one so overbearing that it blinds him from the truth that he destroys plenty of lives to realize his private profit. A scene that finest represents this senseless mass homicide for a trigger that ends in egocentric revenue is the Colonel’s order from the helicopter, “I don’t give a rattling who’s down there, kill all of them! ” A low angle shut up shot of the centre framed helicopter is used, presenting it as an overwhelming, menacing presence.
The road itself poses an emphasis on the Colonel’s voracious motives, suggesting he would kill his buddy, and foremost character ‘Danny Archer’, if it means his conflict is gained and his seldom advantages are acquired. There may be thought-about intertextuality between this quote and that of Kurtz from Heart of Darkness. On the full loss of morality from Kurtz, a quote marks this factors “Exterminate all of the brutes. ” These quotes juxtapose the 2 characters from the person texts collectively and with it, their grasping functions and malevolent natures, proving that the greed of a person is the basis of their co-existing evil.
Greed pushed corruption can also be existential on a communal degree, each in Heart of Darkness and Blood Diamond. In Heart of Darkness, the Firm is the centre of commerce within the Congo, a seemingly respectable business, though with hidden voracious motives. “She talked about weaning these ignorant tens of millions from their horrid ways-I ventured to trace that the Firm was run for revenue. ” This understatement made by Marlow expresses the Firm’s care, or lack of, for the natives of the Congo, however in actual fact they solely care to use the pure sources.
We’re persistently hinted that their work isn’t “on the market within the luminous estuary” however “inside the brooding gloom. ” These binary opposites are repeatedly used within the novella to separate the concepts of mild and darkish with good and evil respectively, an excessive use of irony that Conrad persists with all through the ebook. This senseless exploitation is an instance of how greed can negatively have an effect on a group. The communal results of evil pushed by rapacity in Blood Diamond, is displayed via the actions of the R. U.
F, the Revolutionary United Entrance. Their turning of native kids into baby troopers and different locals into slave labourers, marks their negligence to human life in order that they’ll acquire wealth from the diamond commerce. A closely symbolistic scene within the movie is the celebration following the overtake of Freetown in Sierra Leonne by the R. U. F. The loud, scratchy music accompanying the low key lighting in distinction to the brilliant blurred flames creates a way of chaos and lack of morality, emphasised by the quick cuts and digicam motion.
The chiaroscuro lighting on the character’s faces and the silhouettes juxtaposed to the brilliant fiery background symbolises their consummation by darkness. A number of shows of immoral acts are proven, lifeless our bodies being strung, kids consuming alcohol and medicines and the destruction of property, linking to the classical allusion of Dante’s Inferno, exemplifying pointless struggling and destruction. This, amongst different scenes, symbolises the whole carelessness for human life within the voracious scramble for Africa’s sources.
Though within the century that separates the 2 texts, consciousness has grown dramatically, the worldwide scale of corruption as a result of acts of greed are current in each texts. In Heart of Darkness, the novella ends again aboard the boat with Marlow and his crew as they’re “lead into the center of an immense darkness. ” The bodily connotations of this quote is that the results may be seen on the opposite aspect of the world in England, though satirically the Heart of Darkness doesn’t lie in each the Congo and the Thames however man himself, whose actions have a worldwide impact; the actions of Kurtz. Upon the entire, the commerce will endure. I don’t deny there’s a outstanding amount of ivory-mostly fossil…” This quote demonstrates the worldwide impact that Kurtz’s actions undertake, making a historic allusion to the fossil ivory that ended up in Siberia. This demonstrates the worldwide results that branches out from the corrupt actions of a grasping soul. In distinction, the worldwide consciousness to the state of affairs in Blood Diamond was comparably elevated to that of the nineteenth century, though the worldwide results of gluttony pushed evil had been evidently extra extreme. The third world will not be a world aside” is an ironic assertion represented by the closely juxtaposed scenes between a G8 convention and the diamond fields of Sierra Leonne. The excessive key lighting of the convention against the overcast lighting of the diamond fields together with the respective fashionable color scheme and the soiled, unappealing color scheme is contrasted with fast scene cuts to juxtapose the sheer distinction between the 2 ‘separate worlds. ’ Though these two places appear so distant, the results are carried via from one to the opposite.
The battle diamonds attain the shops of the primary world however “will not be ours to steal within the identify of consolation, firms, and consumerism. ” This captures the worldwide results that man’s greed enfolds, taking benefit of the actions of corruption for our personal consumerism, or greed. So within the century that separates Joseph Conrad’s exploration of colonial regime in his novella Heart of Darkness and Edward Zwick’s post-colonial movie Blood Diamond, there may be ample proof to comment that greed is the basis of all evil in man, the results pning not solely the center of man however inside its group and on a worldwide scale.

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