Prompt: Palestinian American literary theorist and cultural critic Edward Said has written that
“Exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience. It is the unhealable rift forced
between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can
never be surmounted.” Yet Said has also said that exile can become “a potent, even enriching”
experience.
Select a novel, play, or epic in which a character experiences such a rift and becomes cut off from
“home,” whether that home is the character’s birthplace, family, homeland, or other special place. Then
write an essay in which you analyze how the character’s experience with exile is both alienating and
enriching, and how this experience illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole. You may choose a
work from the list below or one of comparable Literary merit. Do not merely summarize the plot.
1. While Kurtz may have had an alienating experience in the darkness of the African jungle, his
effect on Marlow is one that is very enriching, shaping the work’s meaning of oppressive nature
of imperialism.
2. His experience and trials illuminate the hypocrisy and waste of imperialism and the fact that his
message has not reached the shores of Europe.
3. I think a main theme in the novel is imperialism. Marlow travels to the Congo for his company
and, while there, sees how poorly the natives are treated.
4. However, it is through this moral exile that Marlow comes face to face with the epitome of moral
degradation, Kurtz, an encounter that opens his eyes to the truth of imperialism’s evil nature.
5. While Kurtz may have had an alienating experience in the darkness of the African jungle, his
effect on Marlow is one that is very enriching, illuminating the meaning of the work as a whole.
6. The Heart of Darkness is about a guy named Marlow how travels for work into the Congo and
faces many troubling experiences.
7. Through both a moral and geographical rift from home, the protagonist, Marlow, witnesses the
destructive nature of his company’s exploitation of the Congo region, which illuminates the
novel’s criticism of imperialism.
8. Through applying a critical lens to The Heart of Darkness, you can see the meaning of the book
very well.
9. The book I chose is The Heart of Darkness. It uses several literary devices to define Marlow’s
reaction to his rift from home, which illuminates the meaning of the work.
10. Marlow experiences a physical rift from home, but it is the horrifying psychological rift he
experiences that illuminates the novel’s message of the hypocrisy of imperialism.