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Darkness
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What is Darkness?

Darkness as a literary and philosophical concept appears across multiple disciplines, including literature, philosophy, and cultural studies. It functions both as a physical condition and a symbolic register for moral ambiguity, psychological depth, and the unknown. Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness dominates academic treatment of this topic, drawing sustained attention in courses on modernist fiction, postcolonial literature, and narrative theory. The novella's characters—Marlow, Kurtz, and the colonial world of Africa they inhabit—give students a rich framework for exploring how darkness operates as metaphor, critique, and narrative device. Beyond Conrad, the topic extends into other works, including Milton's Paradise Lost and H.G. Wells's short fiction, as well as philosophical frameworks such as Jean-Paul Sartre's concept of bad faith from Being and Nothingness.

Student papers on this topic take several distinct approaches. Many focus on close literary analysis of Conrad's novella, examining how Marlow's journey and Kurtz's character embody moral and imperial darkness. Comparative essays are also common, pairing Heart of Darkness with texts such as Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilych or with film adaptations like Apocalypse Now. Some papers analyze modernist techniques, while others place the work in historical and cultural context, particularly regarding power and Africa.

A strong essay on darkness stakes a clear interpretive claim rather than simply cataloguing symbolic instances. Evidence drawn from specific scenes, character behavior, and narrative voice tends to carry the most analytical weight. The most common pitfall is treating darkness as a self-evident symbol without accounting for how a particular text constructs and complicates its meaning.

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Paper Undergraduate

Fascination and repulsion from Otherness in Song of Kali and The City of Joy

In this chapter, I examine similarities and differences between The City of Joy by Dominique Lapierre (1985) and Song of Kali by Dan Simmons (1985) with regard to the themes of the Western journalistic observer of the Oriental Other, and the fascination-repulsion that inspires the Occidental spatial imaginary of Calcutta. By comparing and contrasting these two popular novels, both describing white men's journey into the space of the Other, the chapter seeks to achieve a two-fold objective: (a) to provide insight into the authors with respect to alterity (otherness), and (b) to examine the discursive practices of these novels in terms of contrasting spatial metaphors of Calcutta as "The City of Dreadful Night" or "The City of Joy." The chapter further argues that these spatial metaphors are redolent of what Peter Stallybrass and Allon White (1986) refer to as the "phobic enchantment" (p. 124) of the Occidental social imaginary for the poverty, squalor and the horror of the Third World.

Paper Undergraduate

Obstacles to academic research productivity and efficiency in Saudi Arabia

Having abundance in natural resources is not the only assets a country have. Real assets are the people of a country. Investing on people would generate higher returns in the future. The Saudi government is keen to invest on its people, since it is predicted that the country would lose its oil resources within a time spam of few years (Onsman, 2011). Apart from primary and secondary education, the higher education/university education contributes a lot in the development of a country. Universities are places which provide multilateral services to the people. Along with providing education and incentives for research, it also plays its role in providing guidelines to the individuals (Al-Gindan, Al-Sulaiman, Muhanna, & Abumadini, 2002). Competiting other countries of the world on the educational basis requires that country invest a handsome part of its spending on research and development activities.

Research Paper Doctorate

Witchcraft and social control among the Azande tribes

Evans-Pritchard was the founder and first president of the Association of Social Anthropologists. His seminal work on indigenous, African tribes has preserved a unique perspective of primitive societies or societies…

Research Paper Doctorate

Goya's use of myth in Saturn devouring his children

Every society has its myths, stories that explain the time-honored order of things. Humankind does what it does now because of ancient prototypes. As Man does, so did the gods. But what of a society in a state of turmoil?

Paper Doctorate

The Four Spiritual Laws and friendship evangelism as evangelistic methods

This four page paper addresses, analyzes, and evaluates three different evangelical approaches: The Intellectual Method, The Relational Method, and the Confrontational Method. The Four Spiritual Laws is the chosen Intellectual Method, Friendship Evangelism is the relational method, and the Way of the Master is the Confrontational method. Summary of each method is given, along with a discussion of advantages and disadvantages.

Paper Doctorate

Edgar Allan Poe's communication style in short stories and poems

This essay examines many of the works of Edgar Allan Poe as they contribute to his ability to communicate to his audience. The essay focuses on the literary techniques of Poe such as use of narrative and dialogue. Poe's use of fear and terror is also examined in this essay as an effective way of communicating his message.

Paper Doctorate

The gap between idea and reality in narrative literature and colonial authority

¶ … space between ideas and reality is a common focus of a great deal of writing, whether explicitly or implicitly or intentionally or otherwise. This gap, in fact, can be considered the root of all conflict within…

Research Paper Doctorate

British imperialism and darkness in Heart of Darkness

In the colonial period, Africa became the land of opportunity for Europeans who exploited the people and resources for profit. When Europeans went to Africa, home of black skinned people, they looked at the land as…

Paper Undergraduate

Martin Luther King's leadership in the "Letter from Birmingham Jail" and "I Have a Dream"

Martin Luther King is probably most well known for his "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington, D.C. in August 1963. Though his "Letter from Birmingham Jail" is less well known, it is also an example of King's ability to communicate and articulate the plight of the black community. He was calling out white preachers in his "Letter" and in the "Dream" speech he was protesting injustice and issuing a dramatic call for change and justice.

Paper Doctorate

Gender dynamics and family danger in Hitchcock's postwar films

In the postwar America, expectations for men and women diverged from those that prevailed during the war years. The exigencies of World War II interrupted the evolution of social progress for Americans, substituting a "fast forward" that could better serve the national initiatives. From positions where everyone became focused on the war effort and their roles in supporting it, the postwar period saw a return to the traditional values that had dominated in the past. Supported by the G.I. Bill, men sought education at unprecedented levels and located themselves in business, resuming the positions and leadership they felt were their due. Homemaking and childrearing returned to center for women in postwar America. If women were engaged in business, it was considered to be secondary to their gender-based roles as mothers, wives, and daughters. Some effects of the wartime patterns were resistant to change. Women did press for more entry points into corporations, in addition to their more traditional employment as teachers, nurses, and secretaries.

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