42432 Essays - Epistemologists, Rationalists, Ren Descartes

42432 Essays - Epistemologists, Rationalists, Ren Descartes 42432 art I: List at least four differences between Descartes and Locke on how we obtain knowledge. For Descartes, (1) knowledge relies completely on utter certainty. Because perception is undependable, (2) knowledge cannot come from our five senses. Descartes believes knowledge can come from experience and deduction. But for this philosopher, (3) he does not believe we gain knowledge from the outside world. Therefore it must come from within. In light to how we view things, Descartes believes that deduction ``can never be performed wrongly by an intellect which is in the least degree rational'', so deductive knowledge is (the only) certain knowledge. Such a system requires a basis of intuitively understood principles from which knowledge can be deduced. (4) He believes that there are some principles which are automatically known, just like the idea of the existence of ourselves and that of God's existence, these are principles which are ``revealed to [us] by natural light'' and ``cannot in any way be open to doubt''. In the end Descartes sees these principles as innate. On the opposite end, John Locke believes something completely different. (1) For starters, he does not believe that knowledge is certain, but that it is just is highly probable. He goes on to say that (2) knowledge comes from our fives sensations or our five senses. Those five senses come from the outside world. Locke disagrees with Descartes when he s...

Imeprialism Should We or Shouldnt We essays

Imeprialism Should We or Shouldnt We essays Imperialism:Should We or Shouldnt We? The decision of America to branch out and expand the country is a decision that has been highly debated over the course of Americas history. It was a difficult time in America, around the 1890s; and America was faced with a dilemma. The working class was poor and most Americans felt it was because of overproduction. The popular belief was that America was producing, it just wasnt using it all. The belief of overproduction and another popular belief of Manifest Destiny were the driving forces behind imperialism. I believe these reasons alone were not sufficient enough to justify the building of an American empire. Imperialism in America at the time was a good thing. America was indeed overproducing. So in order to improve the economy Government believed that if the country expanded this would create a better market and improve the economy all around. It would create more jobs and more people to buy up the surplus America was producing. It would basically level out the economy so that everyone could prosper. Another good thing about Imperialism came through Manifest Destiny. It was the belief that America was destined to rule and so expansion also came about. One of the things that developed through Manifest Destiny was a new sense of nationalism. It gave people pride in their country unlike anything before. They felt good towards their country so much so that most Americans supported imperialism. They used reasons like white mans burden, and god given rights to base imperialism on. It brought pride and happiness, which in turn improved peoples spirits in everything. The workplace, life, family everything. America was a great place to be in during these times with all the good feelings being generated by everyone. It was a good morale booster for everyone in America. That is one of the most positive things I think developed out of American Imperialis ...

Kantianism and Utilitarianism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 2

Kantianism and Utilitarianism - Essay Example This paper will focus on evaluating a euthanasia case of Brophy, using utilitarianism and Kantianism. Brophy is a patient in persistent vegetative state, whose wife expressed the intent of carrying out passive euthanasia.Kantianism. Immanuel Kant described a deontological ethical philosophy titled as ‘Kantianism’. He made it evident that in his view, duty, good will, and moral worth were critical aspects in determining of the action taken. In his view, one could only settle on morally worth decisions when guided by goodwill and duty. He opined that duty was the only reason that should motivate an ethical action (Abel 24). According to him, human beings are moral agents that should use reasoning while making ethical decisions. He highlighted that certain maxims were critical as guidelines of making ethical decisions. These principles were the product and reason and were namely duty, goodwill, and categorical imperative. Goodwill is a critical moral maxim because he highli ghted that without goodwill, any positive trait or action does not qualify to be good (46). Therefore, the will determining why an individual carries out a certain action cannot receive underestimation in deontology. He advanced his views to highlight that the only way in which an individual could exhibit good will was through taking action out of duty.In Kant’s definition, good will denotes the ability of human beings in taking decisions based on principles.

Strategic HRD and HRM Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Strategic HRD and HRM - Assignment Example Each cupboard is unique and requires flexibility and an attention to detail within the manufacturing process to suit client's customization needs. Company delivers bespoke fume-cupboards to customers' gate but does not get involved in its installation. The Company consists of 220 personnel, 175 of them work on manufacturing process-the core process. Balance of 45 personnel work in the sales department, design department and the support function. Support functions include payroll, accounts, HRM, and administration. HRD problem as identified in company structure appears to be the fact that HRM function is small and inadequately staffed within the company. Further evidence in the case reveals that this function is not able to achieve its objectives to a very large extent. Similarly sales and design departments appear to be under Staffed.The Company has core operations in the manufacturing process in which 80% of employees are deployed. It comprises of several functional sections like th e sheet metal cutting and folding for the cupboards, protective coating application, initial assembly, plumbing, and electrical sections. The first HRD/Organizational problem identified in core operations appears to be loose span of supervisory control over laborers. Assuming 4 supervisors per functional section, we have about 20 supervisors in 5 sections and 155 laborers under such supervisors. Each supervisor on an average has about 8 laborers under him. Second problem relates to very high labor turnover on manufacturing shop floor. This disturbs the supervisor span of control further which is already high at 8 laborers and possibly obstructs the product customization process leading to defectives and quality deficiencies. Moreover quality control function at the company is very weak too. Orders schedules are not adhered to and orders are not built as per customer specifications. In fact that there is no separate quality function in the factory, and there is a general apathy about the quality of the product produced. Apathy is also evident in the untidy workplaces. The production process does not seem to be efficient and has not been reviewed for several years. The only quality checking that is done is the check of the final product against the original specification, and the standard of skills available within the company do not match the high level of product specification required to ensure custom quality. As a result orders are sent to customers despite errors of the manufacturing process that have been logged on final inspection, in order to meet delivery dates. This involves the company in having to rectify problems once the cupboard has been either delivered or installed, and attracts additional unnecessary costs that are borne by the FumeGo.Design function, within the core manufacturing operations, is understaffed and has weak organizational linkages resulting in poor intra organizational communications. The designers do not liaise at all with manufa cturing for ensuring adherence to product design. The design section is finicky about costly perfect solutions rather than value engineering. They often add some otherwise redundant aesthetic

Citizenship Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4750 words

Citizenship - Article Example Philosophers and political theorists including Kant, Hobbes, Marx, Machiavelli and Locke etc have presented different views and articulated various theories to define the manners, rights and obligations of citizenship. Their works indicate directly and indirectly the factors supportive in maintaining peaceful atmosphere within a social set up. They have also indicated the basic causes and circumstances leading the nations towards the path of conflict and destruction. The term citizenship simply refers to the membership of a country, a state, a tribe, a community or an authority, which creates rights and duties between citizens and the state. The individuals are bound to abide by the norms, values, mores, taboos and laws determined by the authorities to keep peace and solidarity in its fold. Citizenship not only implements wide range of obligations on citizens, but also offers them many opportunities to grow, make progress, involve into social, political, cultural, religious, economic and other peaceful activities on the one hand, and assures the individuals peaceful environment, security of life, honour and belongings, legal remedies, justice and equality within its platform on the other. Looking into the history of the world from the most primitive societies of Palaeolithic and Neolithic eras to the most modern ones of contemporary technological age, it becomes evident that social inequality and injustices always existed in all human societies give birth to stratification and conflict. Philosophers and thinkers have defined the causes and consequences of conflict between different groups and remedies for it in order to escape anarchical situation in the society. Sociological researches too reveal the very fact that even during the ancient times different classes existed in every culture and civilization.Kant emphatically submits that the state of peace among the people living side by side and remaining in constant interaction with one another cannot be remained peaceful, as it is in the nature of man to contain differences with other fellow-beings. It is therefore it is war rather than peace which could be stated as the natural one. The same is the case with nations and states which are at warring positions in the one way or the other. Many wars took place between the Greeks and the Persians time and again sabotaging the peace and harmony of the countries. Absence of any regularity authority to check the advances of the c onflicting states kept them in constant war position. The Athenians declared these wars as the golden chapter of their history, though it cost hundreds of lives as well as pushed the economy to a sorry state. "In Ionia (the modern Aegean coast of Turkey) the Greek cities, which included great centres such as Miletus and Halicarnassus, were unable to maintain their independence and came under the rule of the Persian Empire in the mid 6th century B.C. In 499 BC the Greeks rose in the Ionian Revolt, and Athens and some other Greek cities went to their aid." (Quoted in http://www.crystalinks.com/greeksocial.html) The Persians invaded

Masculinity In Victorian Gothic Novels

Masculinity In Victorian Gothic Novels In both Robert Louis Stephensons The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Bram Stokers Dracula, social expectation reveals anxieties surrounding sexuality in the Victorian period. Stephensons novel depicts the masculine as a vehicle of self denial where the protagonist Jekyll will not allow himself to surrender to his immoral alter-ego. In a similar way, the novel Dracula depicts sexual power as a major threat to masculinity, whereby the male characters refuse to permit the females to act upon their sexual desires for fear that such liberation will destabilise patriarchal control. Whilst Victorian ideology is not outwardly challenged in the novels, as liberation sexual or otherwise is entirely condemned, investigating the function of the masculine reveals a somewhat radical gender ideology which contests Victorian expectation. In general, critics comment on oppression of the female within the Victorian period and overlook the same subjugation faced by men. Female disempowerment is commonly recognised whereas male suffering in the context of the same social rigidity is often omitted in criticism of the time. Critic George Landow comments that feminist analysis of the Gothic focuses on the concern of the stereotyping of the female characters according to male fantasy, however Stokers Dracula indulges the male imagination by subverting stereotypical female characters and allowing women power through sexual liberation. Stoker challenges Landows comments that it is only the feminine that suffers under marginalisation of the stereotype by presenting masculine subjugation as a consequence of social restraint. Critic Cyndy Hendershots work on male oppression in Victorian society further challenges ideology of the time. She argues that, generally, the notion of Victorian masculinity is ambiguous as stereotypical an d presumptuous representations of male characters are rarely questioned. Stefan Collini is a critic who acknowledges the ambiguity surrounding representations of Victorian masculinity. He comments that there appears to be a general consensus of gender ideals whereby the accepted single, rigid idea of Victorian masculinity remained unquestioned. Collini suggests that the concept of Victorian masculinity as heterosexual rises from an unquestioned assumption of this as the norm. As a result, it seems that the novels work to challenge accepted roles of gender and sexuality within the Victorian period. Within Victorian society, one of the fundamental concerns was the preservation of reputation. Alongside this concern lay an anxiety over sexuality and how to express and, in turn, suppress, sexual desires. In many ways, the oppressive nature of society, and consequently the inability for men, as well as women, to be sexually expressive, only heightened the fascination of a more sinister side of sexuality. In Jekyll and Hyde, there is a major emphasis on the value systems within Victorian society, especially with regards to their concern to preserve reputation. This is made evident through the characters of both Utterson and Enfield, both respectable members of the society who consider gossip as detrimental to a persons reputation. Dr Jekylls major concern is the way in which others perceive him and he is conscious to maintain an upstanding reputation throughout the novel. On the other hand, the character of Hyde is presented as wholly monstrous and as a means through which Jekyll can become uninhibited, unleashing the emotions society compels him to contain. The characters are anxious to remain within the boundaries of social expectation, yet this overbearing force of constraint is often detrimental as it is clear in both novels that what is constantly suppressed is ultimately released. It is interesting to consider the role of the male characters within the novels as it is evident that the masculine is not, as it would first appear, prioritised. Moreover, the omission of the female, which would generally suggest lack of authority on the part of the feminine, suggests here that the male characters are problematic to themselves, exposing the weakness of the male in a supposedly patriarchal society. In Jekyll and Hyde, the way in which the male characters are so evidently anxious about women and sexuality, despite the fact there are no predominant female characters, suggests that the masculine sphere is continually threatened by female influence. In many ways, the removal of the feminine exposes the flaws of the masculine, and shows that it is not the female who causes the male to suffer but the male alone. The threat of female sexual expression despite the lack of females within the novel demonstrates the psychological turmoil the men face under the constraints of th e Victorian society. Dracula uses female sexuality as a threat to men, again demonstrating the power that women hold over the men and consequently emphasising the weakness of the male. One of the key themes within Stokers novel is the fear surrounding sexual expression. Female sexual expression is seen as a threat which provokes a form of pleasure in the male imagination. The characters are liberated from the pressures of social constraint by means of the imagination, through which they can give a free rein to their sexual desires. Female sexuality is fundamental to the novels exploration of the role of the male within Victorian society as the novel shifts power from one gender to another, as the females exercise their voluptuousness and the men act to maintain social order. Critic Heath comments that feminism makes things unsafe for men, unsettles assumed positions and undoes given identities. Stokers Dracula confirms this theory in its exploration of sexually powerful women who threaten patriarchal authority. On the other hand, the way in which the female characters transform into vampire vixens is not categorically a feminist depiction as the females simply tran sform into embodiments of Dracula, meaning that they shift and take on a masculine form in order to gain power. The three females who become sexualised are clearly representations of gender subversion as they seek to dominate Harker and use him to fulfil their own sexual urges. Yet, in many respects, these females must adopt the role of the male in order to acquire any form of power. Their sharp teeth, which they are determined to bite Harker with, are undoubtedly phallic symbols which epitomise the penetration of the victim. Ultimately, the way females attain power in the novel is through masculinity, therefore gender ideals are not subverted in this sense. Although female characters in the novel are permitted a degree of power and sexual liberation, masculinity remains as the more powerful position. Stoker uses Freudian theory in his novel in order to examine sexuality in the Victorian period without appearing overtly critical of the society in which he lived. The vampire element of the novel distances the reader from the society being described and yet there are noticeable parallels which suggest Stokers deliberate attempt to challenge accepted ideology. Dracula begins with a description of Jonathan Harkers description of how he arrives at the castle. Harker uses the word uncanny in this description which immediately makes reference to Freuds theory, published in 1919, on the uncanny. This theory is referenced throughout the novel, as the vampire who brings about death with his mouth, is representative of the first stage of psychosexual development, according to Freud. It is at this stage where, Freud believes, the person develops the compulsion to destroy that which is living. The characters of Lucy and Mina are presented as being wholly devoted to the men in their lives. This innocence depicts these women as both docile and two-dimensional. Dracula threatens to change these women into devils of the Pit and give them power through sexualisation, and it is only through these transformations that the female characters may acquire a voice within the text. When Lucy Westerna is transformed into a sexual being by Count Dracula, she changes from a weak and passive female character into a vampire vixen who seeks to satisfy her own sexual desires. She is at first submissive at the hands of the male characters but, once she becomes sexualised, she hunts for to use men for her own advantage and fulfil her sexually. Stokers Dracula investigates the possibility of a kind of fluidity within gender roles. When Lucy transforms into a voluptuous vampire, any potential male suitor is warned off at the demand of any form of objection to established sexual identity. The men are perturbed at the prospect of a woman usurping power and subverting accepted roles. Lucys transformation is seen as so insubordinate of social expectation that Van Helsings men are determined to destroy her in an attempt to reinstate social order. The men are fearful that Mina will also be transformed and dedicate themselves to controlling female sexual behaviour in order that the women do not become disparaged socially and therefore incapable of any relationship with them. The mens fears over the womens transformations are entirely selfish as they feel unsafe with any attack on social order. Dracula mocks them saying your girls that you love are mine already; and through them you and others shall yet be mine. He suggests here tha t his transformation of women into sexualised vampire vixens, where their sexual desires are uncontained and liberated, leaves men exposed and will ultimately destroy patriarchy within society. Stoker depicts Victorian horror at the thought of a sexually liberated woman through his description of Harkers own fear at confronting the vampires. His confusion surrounding the kiss of the vampire, where he feels both desire, in his longing for the kiss, and deadly fear at the same time, is representative of the way that Victorian society constrained the mobility of sexual desire for men, as well as for women. His confusion as to whether he was dreaming in his visions of pleasure as the women approached him suggest that he will not allow himself to consider any sexual desire as real and he will not confront his feelings. He decides that if the vampires are more than just visions then they will drink his blood, making themselves stronger and, in turn, weakening him. However, he is still fearful of these vampires if they are simply visions as they still threaten to drain him of semen, as they are providing him with sexual pleasure, as he lies in languorous ecstasy. Harkers weakness as a male is revealed when he is described as being both sickened and excited by the thought of any sexual contact with the female vampires. This demonstrates the oppressive nature of Victorian society in that Harker was forced to subdue his desires as he did not have the power to act upon them. The way in which Stoker depicts Harkers fear in losing valuable fluid, whether blood or semen, in either situation, presents an image of the collapsing patriarchal structure of Victorian society. Stoker may be warning men of this social change, but it seems more likely that he is encouraging social ideology to be reconsidered. The function of the vampire in the novel can be considered as a representation of sexual oppression. The male characters in Dracula all fight to contain female sexuality as they panic for their own wellbeing. In Christopher Crafts essay on gender and inversion in the novel, he argues that Dracula uses gender stereotypes in order to encourage exploration into sexuality and in order that social expectation can be re-imagined. He comments that the novels depiction of transformation, whether from victim to vampire or from vampire to the victim, permits an investigation into sexuality and gender. Often, the way in which the novel challenges oppressive Victorian society is overlooked in favour of its apparent denunciation of gender inversion. Dracula seems to imply a failing on the part of women who seek to subvert conventional social roles and yet in many ways the females are not permitted any form of power as they adopt masculine qualities when they are transformed into vampires. It can be said that gender roles are not definitively reversed in the novel, as the females must become male as they become vampires. In becoming male, the female vampires lose any maternal sense as they prey on innocent children and they become penetrators in their desire to suck blood from their victims. The novel, therefore, has no real female representation, suggesting that Stoker was not setting men and women up against each other but commenting on society as a whole. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a novel which confronts anxieties of the Victorian period. The narrative presents the idea of one body which contains two opposing personas. Dr Jekyll, who is well-educated and an upright member of society is contained within the single body alongside the wholly immoral Mr Hyde. Dr Jekylls underlying desire to liberate himself from the oppressive society in which he lives is outplayed through his alter-ego Mr Hyde, who enjoys the freedom of acting upon his desires and human urges. This representation seems to emulate Victorian societys deep-rooted fascination with emancipation from social imprisonment. Many critics suggest that masculinity is often presented as an adaptable and indefinite sphere within the novel, a factor which has permitted a degree of reimagining the concept of the male in literature. Critic Cohen argues that from as early as the 1880s, fictional depictions of English masculinity often narrativise the difficulties of the male embodiment as a splitting within the male subject precisely in order to assert new modes of self-representation. He suggests here that the male figure was less frequently written as a stable representation and was more commonly represented as a character with more than one persona. The image of Victorian London presented by Stephenson is a society almost entirely lacking in females. The only woman who is present in the narrative is the maid who witnesses the murder of Sir Danvers Carew. Her status instantly suggests that the woman is lower class and she is presented as an almost insignificant member of society. She describes the body of Sir Danvers Carew as beautiful. This is the only instance novel in the novel where there is any form of interaction between the genders and, even this interaction is presented as non-sexual. The consequences of such a repressive society are clearly detrimental to the people who inhabit it, as Dr Jekyll proves through Hyde, and this oppression is demonstrated through the lack of open sexual desire within the novel. Furthermore, the absence of women within the novel suggests that the male identity crisis was a social creation rather than due to female influence. The men in the novel are at peril with their sexual identity and plac e in society because of the imposing nature of society itself. Whilst Stephenson presents the idea that Victorian society regarded displays of sexuality as indecent, Hydes actions within the novel are undoubted of a sexual nature. When Hyde is first introduced to the novel, there is a description of him trampling a young girl underfoot, and, afterwards, he pays for her family to keep quiet about the incident. This incident could insinuate that Hyde was involved in the common Victorian crime of child prostitution. Moreover, the lack of sexual desire towards females on the part of the male characters may imply that these men were concealing homosexual tendencies. The close relationship shared between Utterson and Enfield may also imply that these two men take part in some kind of sexual behaviour that would have been condemned at the time. Freudian theory labels the character of Hyde as an illustration of the unconscious mind, known as the id. Jekylls ability to conform to social expectation is controlled by his ego which suppresses his unconscious thoughts. Critic Michael Kane believes that Victorian society found the unconscious mind as detrimental. He comments that repressed desires were projected upon those it considered inferior, not only women but any lower order of society, who became the unconscious of respectable society. His ideas suggest that gender is not the significant factor which causes people to act upon their basic urges; it is the idea of levels of the class which impose social rigidity. By this he means that upper class citizens are more likely to suppress any improper desire because of their position within society. This argument is not supported by the novel, however, as Jekyll is a doctor so he is clearly educated and he is a respectable member of society who falls victim to the social oppression he faces. The novel uses the concept of the double in order to examine the way in which characters of either gender can be identified by more than one state, exploring Stephensons own claims that every human being contains some form of alter-ego. Dr Jekyll is an upstanding citizen who conceals an immoral monster in the form of alter-ego Hyde. Throughout the novel the two are presented as entirely distinct beings and it is only in the novels conclusion that the reader can fully understand the two personas as one character. The use of the double personality of Jekyll and Hyde is a useful concept when considering male gender identity, as the dual nature of the individual is said to destabilise male character itself. The novel challenges the idea that the male character represents unquestionably the embodied attributes of a male and a gender ideology that qualifies masculinity as proper male character. Despite the fact that the novel does appear to confront gender stereotypes referenced in the pre vious statement, the idea of masculinity is difficult to consider in the context of social influence, the idea that society constructs the way that gender identity is formed. Stephenson does not condemn men as individuals but comments on the way that the stringency of Victorian society and its expectations does not account for the duality of human nature. Both Stokers Dracula and Stephensons Jekyll and Hyde share a similar narrative structure, introducing a monstrosity and then exploring this idea before eradicating the monster with the intention that social order is reinstated. The monster in Dracula is the Count himself and the monstrosity of the novel is the liberation of female sexual expression through his transformation of women into vampire vixens. Stephensons novel shows the monster as repressed desires of Jekyll which are unveiled through the vehicle of Hyde. At the end of the novel, Jekyll reveals that he knows Hyde will be no more by the time Utterson reads his final letter. At the end of Stokers novel, Dracula is killed and Little Quinceys birth fulfils Van Helsings prophecy of the children that are to be and restores order among the community. Critic Christopher Craft comments that the monstrous threat in the novels is contained and finally nullified by the narrative requirement that the monster be repudiated and the worl d of normal relations restored. The restoration at the end of both novels suggests that gender ideals cannot be subverted entirely, despite challenging social expectation to a certain degree. Nevertheless, the conclusions of the novels are not positive which suggest that although ideals remain as established this is not necessarily the best outcome and there is an inference that change needs to be made. Gothic novels are commonly recognised as texts which exemplify the subjugation of women yet the oppression faced by the male characters is often disregarded. Both men and women suffered equally under the repressive Victorian society which directed sexual behaviour and regarded open sexual expression as depraved. The function of the male character within the novels is not merely to criticise the patriarchal society of the 19th century but to challenge the way that social ideology was a detrimental factor to both men and women.

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness - A Modernist Novel :: Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness - A Modernist Novel Modernism began as a movement in that late 19th, early 20th centuries. Artists started to feel restricted by the styles and conventions of the Renaissance period. Thusly came the dawn of Modernism in many different forms, ranging from Impressionism to Cubism. In order to explore new venues of creativity Modernists tinkered with the perception of reality. During the Renaissance, the depiction of a subject was very straight forward. A painting had to look like what it represented. The truth was absolute and right and wrong were clearly defined. For Modernists, the world is much more obscure. In Impressionist paintings, lines are not definite and things tend to blur together. Faces usually do not differentiate one person from another. Cubism takes the opposite route for the same effect. Solid lines are drawn, but the painting itself is usually more abstract (as with Picasso). At times it can be difficult to discern what some paintings are supposed to represent. Bright, vivid colors infuse the pieces with more passion. The contrast between those not well defined objects and the punch of emotion gives cubism its personality and vitality. Many believed that Modernist works were not â€Å"art† because they did not always look like real life. But what is â€Å"real life†? A new outlook on reality was taken by Modernists. What is true for one person at one time is not true for another person at a different time. Experimentation with perspective and truth was not confined to the canvas; it influenced literary circles as well. Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is a great example of a Modernist novel because of its general obscurity. The language is thick and opaque. The novel is littered with words such as: inconceivable, inscrutable, gloom. Rather than defining characters in black and white terms, like good and bad, they entire novel is in different shades of gray. The unfolding of events takes the reader between many a foggy bank; the action in the book and not just the language echoes tones of gray. In Modernist literature, much like painting, there is experimentation with form: narration style, tone, plot line. Instead of having Kurtz tell his story, or Marlow recite the tale of his journey, the actual narrator in the Heart of Darkness is an unknown passenger on the Nellie. Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness - A Modernist Novel :: Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness - A Modernist Novel Modernism began as a movement in that late 19th, early 20th centuries. Artists started to feel restricted by the styles and conventions of the Renaissance period. Thusly came the dawn of Modernism in many different forms, ranging from Impressionism to Cubism. In order to explore new venues of creativity Modernists tinkered with the perception of reality. During the Renaissance, the depiction of a subject was very straight forward. A painting had to look like what it represented. The truth was absolute and right and wrong were clearly defined. For Modernists, the world is much more obscure. In Impressionist paintings, lines are not definite and things tend to blur together. Faces usually do not differentiate one person from another. Cubism takes the opposite route for the same effect. Solid lines are drawn, but the painting itself is usually more abstract (as with Picasso). At times it can be difficult to discern what some paintings are supposed to represent. Bright, vivid colors infuse the pieces with more passion. The contrast between those not well defined objects and the punch of emotion gives cubism its personality and vitality. Many believed that Modernist works were not â€Å"art† because they did not always look like real life. But what is â€Å"real life†? A new outlook on reality was taken by Modernists. What is true for one person at one time is not true for another person at a different time. Experimentation with perspective and truth was not confined to the canvas; it influenced literary circles as well. Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is a great example of a Modernist novel because of its general obscurity. The language is thick and opaque. The novel is littered with words such as: inconceivable, inscrutable, gloom. Rather than defining characters in black and white terms, like good and bad, they entire novel is in different shades of gray. The unfolding of events takes the reader between many a foggy bank; the action in the book and not just the language echoes tones of gray. In Modernist literature, much like painting, there is experimentation with form: narration style, tone, plot line. Instead of having Kurtz tell his story, or Marlow recite the tale of his journey, the actual narrator in the Heart of Darkness is an unknown passenger on the Nellie.