Rich TranMr. RodriguezAP Lit 510 January 2014Compare/contrast between "The Heart of Darkness" and "The Hollow Men"The novel "The Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad and the poem "The Hollow Men" by T. S. Eliot personify the idea of indifference. As TS Eliot describes his men as "empty", showing no or lacking any form of interest, so does the manager of "The Heart of Darkness". However, they contrast with Kurtz, an ambitious and dreamy man, who realizes that to survive in the interior of Africa he must behave like a god towards these primitive populations. ”, the manager is seen as a common man since he lives and works a normal life; however, through Marlow's description of him, we see that the manager is "uncomfortable" about something. (Conrad 32-33) We later learn that his discomfort stems from his inability to pursue anything in life and that he is jealous of Kurtz because of his success. The manager has no redeemable qualities to look up to; Marlow states that he has “no genius for organization, or even for order.” (32) This makes us wonder how he got the job of manager, but we soon learn that he has been present at his job for the past three years, and from this Marlow remarks that “maybe there was nothing in it,” meaning there was no chance of him getting sick as he also lacked aspirations to do so. The beginning of TS Eliot's “The Hollow Men” refers to “Heart of Darkness” with the first line; "Mistah Kurtz - he is dead", this first line could not only symbolize the death of Kurtz, but the death of intellect, aspirations and thought. The part that follows this line depicts the uncivilized or “empty men”. Incivility......middle of paper......decisive. Unlike the manager, the hollow men do not have clear vision, "there are no eyes here, and there are no eyes here", this quote is used to describe the two sets of eyes, one coming from the hollow men and the other from the empty man. heavens. The hollow men are “blind, unless the eyes reappear like the perpetual star,” to guide them and give them meaning and purpose, which neither the hollow men nor the station manager possess. The warden is placed in the novel to show how empty men's adaptation to uncivilized life can be very costly, while the poem exemplifies that idea and the fact that these "empty men" are missing something vital to life. However both characters express the same indifferent personality, despite not appreciating meaning and initiative, they seem to embrace the fact that everything happens for a reason and accept it as it is..
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