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Thursday 21 March 2013

Heart of Darkness Essay

Historical Novel

This assignment introduces you to the debate over the respective 'boundaries' between history (factual/realistic) and literature (fictive/imaginative),and ways the latter may illuminate or distort our understanding of the former. The assigned novel is a fictional representation of colonialism in the (Belgian) Congo. In that sense, the novelist in question, Conrad, grappled with the same "problem" (historian) Collins and (journalist) Hochscild sought to explain: the object of European imperialism (colonialism) in Africa.


Guidelines:
Your essay should consist of two INTEGRAL sections: Introduction and 'THESIS'.

Section I: Should be a general statement on the merits (advantages) and hazards (disadvantages) of using historical novels as "aids" to understand history - a maximum of one page and a half.

Section II: Using Conrad's Heart of Darkness, as a case, pick ONE of TWO (maximum) issues of historical significance treated by the novelist and explain how his fictive situations simulate or correspond to factual (historical) ones: racial attitudes, quest for "raw material", labour requisition, etc. Use the authors of your two texts (Collins, Historical Problems of Imperial Africa and Hochscild, King Leopold's Ghost) as 'witnesses' to demonstrate your argument for or against the utility of Heart of Darkness as an aid in understanding imperialism/colonialism. There is no need for quotations from any source other than the novel - simply use footnotes or endnotes to acknowledge the authors you called as 'witnesses'.

This essay should be 5 pages long, double spaced.

From me: I've attached an essay I wrote for this class so you can get an idea of my writing style and use of citations.

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