Realization

Section 2 Passage-pg 32
This passage I chose, because Marlow sees something in the natives. Marlow sees a surface-truth.
  "The earth seemed unearthly. We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there -- there you could look at a thing monstrous and free. It was unearthly, and the men were -- No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of it -- this suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity -- like yours -- the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly. Yes, it was ugly enough; but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself that there was in you just the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspicion of there being a meaning in it which you -- you so remote from the night of first ages -- could comprehend. And why not? The mind of man is capable of anything -- because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valour, rage -- who can tell? -- but truth -- truth stripped of its cloak of time. Let the fool gape and shudder -- the man knows, and can look on without a wink. But he must at least be as much of a man as these on the shore. He must meet that truth with his own true stuff -- with his own in-born strength. Principles won't do. Acquisitions, clothes, pretty rags -- rags that would fly off at the first good shake. No; you want a deliberate belief. An appeal to me in this fiendish row -- is there? Very well; I hear; I admit, but I have a voice, too, and for good or evil mine is the speech that cannot be silenced. Of course, a fool, what with sheer fright and fine sentiments, is always safe. Who's that grunting? You wonder I didn't go ashore for a howl and a dance? Well, no -- I didn't. Fine sentiments, you say? Fine sentiments, be hanged! I had no time. I had to mess about with white-lead and strips of woolen blanket helping to put bandages on those leaky steam-pipes -- I tell you. I had to watch the steering, and circumvent those snags, and get the tin-pot along by hook or by crook. There was surface-truth enough in these things to save a wiser man."

Cruel

"Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth, half coming out, half effaced within the dim light, in all the attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair. Another mine on the cliff went off, followed by a slight shudder of the soil under my feet. The work was going on. The work! And this was the place where some of the helpers had withdrawn to die.

   "They were dying slowly -- it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now -- nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom....The man seemed young -- almost a boy. 
Cruelty at its peak, if there's such a saying. In Heart of Darkness, slaves were brutally taken advantage of for their labor and left to die. To the oppressor the slaves were easily replaced, just transactions. What makes an individual to have no source of remorse, empathy, or sympathy? Is it the hunger of and for power? Some believe that humanity is only bad at the core, but there is still always some small amount of good even in the worst of people. Growing up in different places, observing individuals who all come from different and diverse walks of life proves there is still good in the bad, no matter how bad. Sometimes the bad may outnumbers the good, but the good always outweighs the bad it just takes a watchful eye to notice and acknowledge the reason for one's motives.

Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad has recurring themes of light versus dark, civilized verses savagery. So far the story of Heart of Darkness seems to expand of the topic of overpowering and overtaking; corruption at the core of power seems to surface on the several few pages of Heart of Darkness. Charlie Marlow, a character in Heart of Darkness, states "The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much." Throughout history this concept and the concept of overtaking in order to obtain selfish gain has been self-evident not only in territory but resources as well. Native Americans and their land. Chinese laborers and railroads. Africans as field laborers. Spanish enslaving Filipinos and Mexicans. North Korea verses South Korea. Pakistan verses India. Mongolia versus China. Nazi Germans against the European Jewish Community. Some overtaking even occurs withing aspects of religion or social status/classes. The list of victims and underminers and overtakers goes on. The concept of in order to become great and build ourselves up, we have to knock down and undermine. This concept is cowardly but for some terrifying reason this has reoccurred throughout history. This has always been the way things have been done. But there is always a chance to improve and change the future after all things do always get worse before they get better, all it takes is dedication for the determination of change.