Shadows of Madness: Unveiling Imperialism and Psychological Collapse in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (Published)
Belgian colonial atrocities perpetrated a brutal regime of exploitation and hierarchical supremacy, forcibly imposed upon the Congolese people from 1885 to 1908. Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, written during this period, illustrates this isolation and its psychological ramifications, regarded as ‘madness.’ Imperialism and madness are linked paradoxically in the story. This research explores imperialism, mental fragmentation, and their inextricably linked in Conrad’s novella. It studies how colonial oppression in the Congo breeds madness, remarkably embodied by Kurtz, whose psychological disintegration represents the moral decay that ties imperialism. The paper focuses on the negative impacts of colonial power by examining the conflict between civilization and savagery, the widespread racism, and the inconsistency of Marlow’s story. Conrad’s perspective of the African land considered a site of mental torment approaches a pinnacle in the obscurity of Kurtz’s final words, which both reflect personal anguish and collective agony. This investigation also emphasizes the relentless mental trauma of colonialism and shows its controversial historical legacy.
Keywords: Imperialism, Kurtz, Madness, colonial exploitation, psychological collapse
From Lucy to Lucia: Walter Scott’s The Bride of Lammermoor as Adapted by Donizetti (Published)
The paper explores the treatment of major female characters in three versions of the narratives most famously known as Sir Walter Scott’s The Bride of Lammermoor: the original incident on which the novel was based, the novel itself, and the opera, Lucia di Lammermoor, composed by Gaetano Donizetti. Because of the popularity of Donizetti’s opera, a female character, Lucia, and Lucy in the novel version, is considered a central character in both narratives. However, the novel’s plot focuses on the male protagonist, Edgar Ravenswood, and his revenge story. In a novel with remarkably few female characters, it is striking that Lady Ashton; holds arguably, the most power in the narratives, contrasting starkly with Lucy’s relative feebleness. Through an examination of the respective narratives’ different though intersecting treatments of women’s desire, power, and madness, I argue that the opera’s Lucia gains a different kind of power through Lady Ashton’s madness.
Keywords: Madness, donizetti, the bride of lammermoor, walter scott, women’s power
Deconstruction of Psychic Issues in Plath’s Poetry (Published)
Sylvia Plath’s poetry offers a wide range of ideas and themes. The article uses Derridian deconstructive ideology to break up the meanings of the text and highlight the wide range of meanings it offers to the readers of different contexts. Deconstruction is the theory that challenges the centrality of any phenomenon and breaks up its structures to generate endless modes of signification. In this article, the study deconstructs Plath’s poems to generate a plurality of meanings related to human behaviors and psychology. It would be debated that various psychic states emerge in her poetry that resists any uniform reading of her poetry. It will be argued that deconstructing the text creates a multiplicity of meanings related to the human psyche and attitudes. This aspect of her work adds meaningfulness to her text and enables the readers to bring out a plurality of meanings associated with a particular mood and behavior. Carl Jung (1975) states that poetry is instrumental in understanding the psyche of the poet. The archetypal patterns and symbols that are recurrent in Plath’s poetry are the expressions of the psychic continual potential for transformation. Her themes are universal because they deal with the traumatic nature of human experience. That is the reason her poetry has influenced half a century after her committing suicide in February of 1963.