Read the following passage from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: Once, I remember, we came upon a man-of-war anchored off the coast. There
wasn't even a shed there, and she was shelling the bush. It appears the French had
one of their wars going on thereabouts. Her ensign dropped limp like a rag: the
muzzles of the long six-inch guns stuck out all over the low hull, the greasy, slimy
swell swung her up lazily and let her down, swaying her thin masts. In the empty
immensity of earth, sky, and water, there she was, incomprehensible, firing into a
continent. Pop, would go one of the six-inch guns: a small flame would dart and
vanish, a little white smoke would disappear, a tiny projectile would give a feeble
screech-and nothing happened. Nothing could happen. There was a touch of
insanity in the proceeding, a sense of lugubrious drollery in the sight and it was not
dissipated by somebody on board assuring me earnestly there was a camp of
natives-he called them enemies!-hidden out of sight somewhere.
What is the main purpose of the passage? Write a short argument to answer the question. Devel
ideas by analyzing specific details from the passage. You are writing an argument, so be careful
include a clear thesis and to respond to at least one counter-argument.

98 points!

assignment

analyzing characters

respond to the following questions in one paragraph for each. use specific examples from the text to support your responses.

1. there is a set of twins on the island named sam and eric. however, when describing them, golding regularly refers to them as samneric. how does this way of describing the twins relate to their behavior and the way that readers understand their characters? what examples of their behavior readers see that samneric is really the appropriate way to refer to them?

2. as the boys set out to search for the beast, ralph allows jack to lead the way, and he sinks to the back of the pack, " to have escaped responsibility for a time." what does this moment lead you to infer about ralph and about his feelings about being the group’s leader? what does this moment foreshadow?

3. while part of the party searching for the beast, simon realizes that the notion of the beast that the other boys have does not make sense. a beast sitting atop a mountain with claws, a beast who did not leave tracks, could have easily caught the twins. simon has a different picture of the beast: "there rose before his inward sight the picture of a human at once heroic and sick." how does this picture relate to the beast that samneric saw? how does it relate to what simon said earlier about the beast being "only us"?

no plagarism

me

macbeth is my cousin wowww