Johnny Mad Dog

still dream about the boy from my village who I killed. I see him in my dreams, and he is talking to me, saying I killed him for nothing, and I am crying." — Mary, a 16-year-old demobilized child soldier forced to join an armed rebel group in Central Africa


Johnny Mad Dog,
I am having a hard time reading this book and let alone the facts of a child soldier. I still can't understand why? I know the speaker touched on it because children are easy to manipulate. People do so much to children it is breaking my heart.

I was reading some information on child soldiers. One article I read on the Internet it said that they will make the young girls marry and or perform sexual acts on the men. Then while reading the book the graphic description of sexual acts makes me sick.

I can't take the heartless acts of violence that these children are faced to do. I remember in class on Tuesday someone made a comment almost like a gang. It made me think of these gangs in America let alone Michigan that are recruiting these Young boys to do some heartless acts of violence.

The gang as and he child soldiers have alot in common. These soldiers make these young men that they are family and the gangs the same way. They terrorized individuals for their own gains. Both are selfish.

This book is gut wrenching and having a daughter and nephews the same age as the young men on the book it is hard for me to read the book.

An Image of Africa

The piece Achebe wrote in response to the racism in Conrad's piece was interested. After reading the book then reading the article a reader can definitely see where the racism does exist in the novel. The question is Conrad racist?

I guess we wouldn't know that since none of us was around during his time. A person can argue that Conrad was racist, he constantly referred to the Africans a niggers and other names except by their tribe name or by their god given name. Can a person argue that this was the time that Conrad was born and raised in. It was time that Africans and African American wasn't even consider human so giving them a humane name was out of the question. If Conrad was living today in 2008, would he write a book that called Africans or African Americans nigger. Different time and different attitudes.

Let's take a child for instance. If a child from birth all they knew was violence and did not value education, working, and being upstanding citizen. They though the only way they could get things was by stealing. Do you fault the child or the environment they were raised in?

Conrad lived in a racist society and he wrote on his experiences. I am sort of neutral on this article. I can clearly see where Achebe is coming from and see all the points in the article. Is Conrad racist or is it the world he was living in?

Heart of Darkness

The Heart of Darkness Themes

I struggle so hard with this book even after reading a twice. I decided to pick out some themes that can be taught in The Heart of Darkness. As a future teacher I knew I will teach books that I do not like or just don't quite understand, but if I find something out the book that I can relate to the students I think it will help. These themes can be used in writing projects of all kinds. Here are some themes that I came up with and got some from the Internet from teachers that have taught the book.

Alienation and Loneliness
The book begins and ends with silence
The question of how silence and loneliness are seen to damaged the characters

Deception
In the book, they claim to educate the people to bring them to a new way of life, but they end up starving and murdering the people for profit.
Marlow lies to Kurtz fiancee, he told her that Kurtz died with her name on his lips.

Order and Disorder
How the characters in the book still carrying on with their lives while chaos was around them

Race and Racism
The constant reference to calling Africans "niggers", "cannibals" and "criminals"

Violence and Cruelty
The acts of inhumane violence committed on the people

One writing project I was thinking of for students is have students write a forgiveness letter to someone that maybe deceived them or was cruel to them. Or they can write a letter to someone and explain to them how they may of felt lonely or alienated. This will help students connect with a book that is difficult to read.