HOD Essay Paragraph 1

During both World Wars Europe committed horrible atrosities among its own "civilized" societies, attrosities that insulted the enlightened society they claimed to be. Yet, this period of nationalism was an unusual halt in the state of war that typically existists in Europe, allowing the elites of the societal order, the creaters of what Freud would call "the super ego", to manipulate how European's viewed themselves. They believed themselves to be an elightened society of scientists and thinkers that through knowledge have become above war, above hatred, above petty violence. Within 20 years of the publication of Heart of Darkness the first shots of World War I were heard around the world and the world witnessed scientific minds warped and demented into weapons. Humanity witnessed the introduction of mustard gas, machine guns, and trench warfare. The illusion of a 'quick' war was shattered brutally shocking a horrified public. This supposedly enlightened society managed to self destruct, killing over a million of their own people, and still they continued to claim that they were bringing entlightenment to Africa. European treatment within the Congo was horouscious with indidionous peoples being brutally mutalated when they refused to obey the orders of the plantation owners. As with Kurtz in Heart of Darkness, profit was the pure motive of this violence, King Leopold II was only seeking to gain profits from growing coffee just as Kurtz was interested in the profits from ivory. The tribal ceromony in dedication of Kurtz where they worshiped him as a supreme power resonates with the nationalisitic banter that grew increasingly prevelent, like the constantly beating drum, leading up into World War I. These mutalated limbs would be desplayed around the trible villages, like the heads in Heart of Darkness, a reminder that the Europeans with their superior being was constantly watching over the tribesmen. The Europeans decided not to use their enlighting knowledge for good in Africa, to advance its people, but instead used their superior knowledge to intimidate and subjucate the native peoples. When photos were leaked of the atrosities commited within the Congo the public, shocked that their nation was commiting brutal acts without public knowledge, demanded the end of this practice. In heart of Darkness unfortunately, Marlow decides not to reveal the truth to the people. He decides that the truth is too vial, too deadly, too horrible to be spoken about in society. *(Quote from page 93)*