This paper should be 4 pages (at least 900 words), double-spaced, with 12-point Times font and 1-inch margins. If your paper does not go on to the fourth page, you will lose 10 points. Write to a university-educated reader who has not read these works. Your paper should include an introductory paragraph ending in a thesis sentence, a number of “body” paragraphs that flesh out the argument and provide evidence (quotes) from the text, and a concluding paragraph. It should be based entirely on class readings and your thoughts. Document references from the texts (quotes and paraphrases) with a parenthetical citation at the end of the sentence. (You can cite either the author or our textbook as a whole—abbreviated as TOM for Trials of Modernity). Do use quotes as supporting evidence, but be sure to introduce the quote, then quote the material, then comment on it again. please use your conclusion to reflect on why and how things have changed between your two texts.

Please write on one of the four topics: 1-:Use Montesquieu’s theory of climate and race to make an argument about whether or not Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is a continuation of this kind of racist thinking or an ironic reversal of it. Where do you think Marlow stands? What lessons did he learn from his encounter with Kurtz? 2-:Hobbes offers a dark view of human existence that is largely opposed by other Enlightenment thinkers (especially Locke). The whole idea of the Enlightenment is that human reason can be used to overcome and improve on what would otherwise be a short, brutish life characterized by warfare, conflict, and constant fear. In Heart of Darkness, Kurtz is initially presented as the pinnacle of European civilization, but he slowly reveals his Hobbes-ian take on life, “the horror.” What are Hobbes’s views on humanity and how does Heart of Darkness return to and build on them? What’s the significance of their reappearance in the twentieth century? 3-:Adam Smith, Friedrich Engels, and Karl Marx all explain how the world works in economic terms. Choose one of these thinkers and explain how their ideas are taken up (and possibly modified) in Heart of Darkness. What are the economics of the novel and how do they engage with one of these earlier thinkers? How does the novel offer a more rounded or full account of human history? 4-:Unlike the other thinkers we read in the module on the “Age of Discovery,” who universally dismissed non-European people as backward, Montaigne offered a nuanced, comparative view, going so far as to suggest that European thought tended to dismiss anything unfamiliar or foreign as “savage,” when in fact the European explorers were guilty of savagery. How would you characterize the views of Marlow? What about another European character in the novel? To what extent are the two in conversation with Montaigne? Is Marlow, like Montaigne, different from the other Europeans?