“Knowledge may be power, but when it comes to self-knowledge, ignorance is bliss” (Why Peo…). One will deliberately search for ways to avoid the truth. Avoiding truth helps one to elude responsibility, pain, honesty towards one’s self, and swallowing of one’s pride. Characters in Lord of the Flies, Brave New World, 1984, and Heart of Darkness exemplify the concept of avoiding the truth.
In Lord of the Flies, Jack avoids the truth of killing his first pig. Killing his first pig was a step from an innocent childhood to an older, more savage life. “His mind was crowded with memories; memories of the knowledge that had come to them when they closed in on the struggling pig, knowledge that ...view middle of the document...
The diary is a technique that Winston uses to express his feelings, something he cannot do because of the thought police. Winston also forms a prohibited relationship with Julia. Situations like this required Winston to be true to himself. He couldn’t lie to himself and say the party wasn’t there, because they were. He knew that the party would come off conqueror and he would be caught. However, rebellion was able to hide the power of Big Brother for a short period of time.
Big Brother was great and powerful. Black people were of completely opposite superiority in Heart of Darkness. The blacks were of little importance and very few of them were even mentioned with a name. Even with minimal significance, these people brought with them a load of serious thought and painful contemplation. Marlow had a hard time believing his eyes when he saw resemblances between the blacks and himself.
“It was unearthly, and the men were- No, they were not inhuman. Well that was the worst of it- the suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would slowly come to one… But if you were a man enough to admit it to yourself that there was in you just the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspicion of there being a meaning in it which you- you so remote from the night of first ages-...