Communication

Relationships are very important to most people.  All over the world relationships thrive or fail every day.  The ones that survive the everyday struggle to be together are the ones who have amazing communication.  In the short story “Hills like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway the couple didn’t have very good communication with each other and it seemed as though it would not last.  Even in “Click” the couple didn’t have good communication as he wanted to work more and make more money for his family while they wanted him to spend more time with them.

In “Hills like White Elephants” the couple is in a bar where they are discussing the “easy operation”.  This easy operation that they are discussing is actually an abortion.  At first it seems that she does indeed want to go through with the abortion but later on in the story it appears that she has remorse and doesn’t want to go through with it.  He doesn’t notice this as continues talking about going through with it.  She asks him if they will be ok and happy again if she does it and he says that they will be better than ever.  She doesn’t seem to care if they will be or not and at the end she says that she “is fine, I’m fine” When really she’s not fine and her minds a blur of thought.  By the end of the short story it is evident that the couple will not last much longer whether she goes through with it or not.  This couple had horrible communication when it came to something important.

In “Click” Mike has everything a man could want but still he wants more.  He works all hours of the night and day just to finish work on time so he can possibly get a raise.  He continually brushes off his family for work to please his boss.  His wife urges him to stay at home and spend time with all of them and take the kids camping.  He agrees but eventually work takes over once again and he brushes them off.  His little blue remote that he got from bed bath and beyond lets him fast forward through his life so he can get his work done, and not have to listen to his wife get mad at him.  He pushes it too far one night and skips so many years off his life that he is divorced but he is the CEO of a big company.  He reached his goal of money but he failed with his relationship.  He never listened or talked to his wife when he should have loved her, his family and take care of them. 

Most relationships fail due to poor communication.  The best ones thrive off of talking with one another and discussing disputes.

Heart of darkness essay

Civilization battles everyday over good vs evil; this book puts life into perspective and shows you what is really happening throughout this vast world.  Human characteristics can be both good and evil and this is what Joseph Conrad wanted to portray in the Heart of Darkness (Conrad, 1997).

In the book Heart of Darkness (Conrad, 1997) a male character named Kurtz is in charge of running station three which is a base on the Congo River for the Ivory trade.   When Kurtz first started out as an agent at the company, he did everything legally and appropriately becoming their most successful agent: “one day he remarked, without lifting his head, ‘In the interior you will no doubt meet Mr. Kurtz. On my asking who Mr. Kurtz was, he said he was a first class agent; and seeing my disappointment at this information, he added slowly, laying down his pen, ‘He is a very remarkable person.’” (Conrad, 1997, pg 159)  However, as time went on, in the novella you start to see hints of unlawfulness and brutality in Kurtz.   As he continues his reign of superiority he starts to ignore the rules and laws of the land.  He starts to abuse the workers; he ruthlessly works them to near death, all for ivory and wealth.  In the end Kurtz seemed to have changed as a person altogether. He started out as a law-abiding agent, but then he became corrupt by power and greed.  This is seen in many different major companies’ throughout the world. “If it had come to crawling before Mr. Kurtz, he crawled as much as the veriest savage of them all.” (Conrad, 1997, pg 222).  For instance, Adidas is all about profit.   In Indonesia, Adidas found a source of cheap labour.  Workers were subject to terrible working conditions, wages way below the legal minimum set by the Indonesian government and they exceed the number of hours worked. The most recent accusations are from sweatshops in El Salvador where workers are having their labour rights violated. The workers are paid as cheaply as possible so at the end of the day Adidas get’s the biggest profit they can. The workers work in terrible working conditions and if they get injured on the job they receive nothing and are simply replaced by someone new.  The cannibals, who also work for the company have the opposite characterises to Kurtz.

A group of cannibals was hired by the company to provide protection for the steamboat while it traveled up the Congo River through all three stations.  These cannibals were neglected during this journey between and they show a great amount of restraint towards the pilgrims they traveled with.  During the trek from the first station to the second, the pilgrims decide to throw the rotting hippo meat that the cannibals brought along to eat overboard: “Certainly they had brought with them some rotten hippo meat, which couldn’t have lasted very long, anyway, even if the pilgrims hadn’t, in the midst of a shocking hullabaloo, thrown a considerable quantity of it overboard.” (Conrad, 1997, pg 193).  That meat was the only sustenance for the cannibals to eat.  This was not a smart move by the pilgrims as they were highly outnumbered by the cannibals.  However, the cannibals were very dedicated to their jobs and refrain from their natural instinct to eat human flesh and left the pilgrims untouched. Today there aren’t cannibals in modern society but the cannibals from the novella are similar to many of the occupy movements.  The cannibals demonstrated they could adapt to their environment by not killing any of the pilgrims after their food was thrown overboard.  Instead they ate the paste they brought with them.  By comparison they showed great restraint by not resorting to violence, just like the occupy movement.   The occupy movement is a non hostile protest against Wall Street.   Though many people do not agree with what these protestors are doing and governments evict them from their tent cities, the protestors refrain from using violence and simply take what is happening to them, ignoring it so as to keep it non violent. These are all very important views from different sides of the story and on the world this is what Conrad has portrayed.

 

In the novella Heart of Darkness (Conrad J. 1997) Joseph Conrad portrayed characters who were good and others that were evil. All you need to do is watch the news or read any news paper to find examples of good and evil happening everyday in every part of the world. The battle of good vs evil has been happening as long as humans have been on the planet. As William Shakespeare said, “The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.”  Joseph Conrad wrote this extraordinary novella to teach everyone what is happening across the world.

 

 

Work Cited

 

Conrad, J. (1997) Heart of Darkness

 

 

Heart of Darkness Book 1

  I never thought that i would ever read a book that was so intense as Joseph Conrads “Heart of Darkness”.  When we started this novella i thought that it would never end and i wouldnt get through the entire book.  The words used in this novella are incredible for a writer whos 3rd language was english.  It is hard to stay with the novella as it is a very difficult read. Personally i would never read a book like this as i have no interest in reading a book of this level, but as you read you start to understand why we are reading this particular novel. At the begging of book one the first sceen the narrator tell’s the reader (you) of marlows tale within a story.  During this whole book you never really leave the yacht but instead are being placed in marlows shoes going through his memory’s. Marlow is seen as a caring character at the begging but as time goes on in the novella he starts to show his true colors towards the congolese. “Can’t say i saw any road or any upkeep, unless the body of a middle-aged negro, with a bullet-hole in the forehead, upon which i absolutely stumbled three miles farther on, may be considered a permanent improvement.” ( Conrad J. Pg 161) In this quote from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness marlow seems to not care at all about the dead negro that is strewn across the road. The gaurd that marlow talked to seemed to not notice at all that there were dead boddies across the road he was supposed to be mainting the upkeep of his stretch of road.  The europeans viewed the congolese as inferior and forced them into slavery for their own needs.  As time goes on it seems that marlow himself views the natives the same as the other europeans. Nobody cares if one of these slaves die because they will just replace them with another so they can continue theyre work. I start to question marlows motives as the novella moves on and he confuzes me as a character.

References

Conrad, J. (1997) Heart of Darkness

Heart Of Darkness

I personally have no clue what is happening in this book. I am confused with whats happening in the book right now. The words Joseph Conrad is using are very advanced. I’m impressed that English is his third language and he can write a novella of this complexity in his third language. English is my first language and i couldnt write a novella at all let alone one of this complexity.