Literary Argument

Thesis Statement

Comparing the literary elements of “Frankenstein” and “Heart of Darkness”.

Introduction

Frankenstein was written by Mary Shelley. The focus of the novel was on a creature which was born with an unconventional experiment of science. It took 6 years for the writer to develop this novel. She started at the age of 15 and finished at 21. The 1st edition of Frankenstein was published in 1818. However, the name of Shelley was not published until the 2nd edition which came in 1823 in France. The novel was developed when Shelley travelled to Geneva and had a bet with a few of her friends. The bet was that who would be able to produce the best horror story. This forced Shelley in to a process of deep thinking and one night she saw a dream of a scientist, creating life within a statue. This idea scared her but provided the basis of the development of the novel. Frankenstein is known to be one of the 1st novels within the genre of science fiction.

Joseph Conrad was the author of the novel named Heart of Darkness. This novel is considered to be a story which is within a story. Its publication was done as a serial which was divided in to three parts. According to Conrad himself, the story consists of the journey of a journalist who is hired as a station manager in the interior. The person does things which are appreciated by the savages of the tribe and they eventually start worshipping him. As time passed, the story became more popular and its translations were done in different languages. There have been numerous interpretations and analysis of the story, majorly of the short length of the story itself. Heart of Darkness was ranked at number 67 in 1998 on top 100 20th century novels of English Language in the Modern Library. It also became a part of Western canon.

Discussion

There are various themes of Heart of Darkness. One of these includes the hypocrisy of imperialism. Various issues which surround imperialism are explored by the story. Marlow is shown to travel from outer to central and then to the inner station where he witnesses the things like near-slavery, cruelty as well as torture. The book has offered the reader a view of the hardship of the colonial activities. The men whom he meets consider their activities as trade and the treatment which they give to the African Americans is part of their struggle to establish some sort of civilization. Krutz, on the hand is shown to have his own mindset of treating the natives.

He openly highlights that he uses the elements of extermination and suppression for the people living there. In addition to that, he also openly admits that he prefers ruling through force and honesty would eventually lead to his downfall. It is important to note that the people had been shown to be treated like objects or machineries. Apart from that, the story focuses on the notion that imperialism ...