In Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih, the story of the mysterious, prodigious and evil Mustafa Sa'eed is told to through the eyes of an anonymous narrator. Although Mustafa is not directly present in most of the book, his actions and the narrator's reflection on his life help drive the plot while the narrator acts more as a conduit for the audience to explore the character's life main. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, which partially inspired Salih, employs the same technique, using the experiences of the narrator, Marlow, to create a contrast between him and Kurtz, who is meant to be Mustafa's equivalent. The juxtaposition of the modest narrator and the larger-than-life character on whom he focuses his attention allows us to distinguish two types of explorers: the observer and the conqueror. Thanks to this device, we can see the effect of the two approaches, and that the last, which seeks to destroy itself, is ultimately destined to destroy itself. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned"? Get the original essay What sets the two narrators apart from their more enigmatic counterparts is, firstly, the reasons why they explore their own centers of 'darkness. The equivalent of the “heart of darkness” in Seasons of Migration to the North is London, where the narrator and Mustafa travel to cultivate their knowledge. Their intentions once there, however, are extremely divergent. The narrator does not seem to have any ulterior motive in leaving, other than to strengthen his own self-esteem (he admits: "I had estimated that the ten million inhabitants of the country had all heard of my achievements" ( Salih 9)). Yet Mustafa viewed his attempt to seduce and emotionally destroy Northern women as a great quest, a response to the North's condescension, ignorance, and subtle contempt. He said to the white men of Europe: “I have come to you as a conqueror” (50). While the former sought to win, the latter only wanted to take and destroy. Likewise, Marlow went to the Congo in search of exploration, while Kurtz left to try to satisfy an insatiable greed for ivory. Marlow explains his motivations by recounting his love of maps as a child and the need he felt to fill the "empty spaces" and "lose himself in the glories of exploration" (Conrad 9-10). Kurtz first came to collect the ivory, acting as “…a first-class agent…in charge of a trading post” (28). Eventually, however, he will come to want much more than ivory can provide, leading him down a path to self-destruction. While delving into the culture shock that is Western life for Mustafa and the anonymous narrator, and that is the Congo for Marlow and Kurtz, Salih raises the question of personal change. In both novels, Marlow and the unnamed narrator act as sorts of knowledge keepers, particularly when Kurtz and Mustafa (respectively) are involved. Mustafa and Kurtz represent the mobility of change, while the narrators demonstrate constraint by keeping knowledge of this change secret and, in some cases, resisting change within themselves. First, mobility appears as an imposition of Mustafa's will on European culture. When referring to Ann Hammond's background, he juxtaposes statements about her family status and reputation with others about dominance: "Her father was an officer in the Royal Engineers, her mother from a wealthy family of Liverpool. She turned out to be easy prey."and “His aunt was the wife of a deputy.” In my bed, I transformed her into a prostitute” (Salih 27). In doing so, he develops the melodrama he sees as his life, proving that the powerful are susceptible to his influence despite their supposed strength. At the same time, European culture also leaves him irritated. He says: “I am from the South and I long for the North and the ice” (27). The latter manifests itself in a marriage between him and the “ice cream” that he tells Jean Morris about (134). He is proclaimed "...the first Sudanese to marry an Englishwoman", which shows that this event is particularly strange (46). The narrator, as the keeper of knowledge (possessing a literal key to unlocking Mustafa's past), faces the concrete evidence of Mustafa's transgressions and immediately feels like destroying everything. He declares that he will set fire to Mustafa's private room, but fails to do so: "At dawn, tongues of fire will devour these lies" (128). Following his failure, he decides to throw the key into the river, but neglects to do so as well. Eventually he attempts to drown himself like Mustafa, but fails again. We can infer that the river is the symbol of darkness from his statement: “Though floating on the water, I was not part of it” (139). He faces the same death as Mustafa, but does not succumb to it, meaning that although he was affected by the same illness, it was not enough to condemn him because he did not not engaged to the same extent as Mustafa. Alternatively, it could mean that he is no longer apart because he also feels disconnected from his people: "There is no place for me here." Why don’t I pack my bags and leave” (107). His stagnation as a character, coupled with his instincts to obfuscate the truth and the fact that he still doesn't tell anyone who Mustafa Sa'eed really is, defines him as the story's constraint that stands in the way of its mobility. It is the passive inaction of the observer that suppresses the destructive desires of the conqueror. In Conrad's work, Kurtz imposes his will on the natives by letting them think he is a god and commanding their every move. The Russian trader who treats Kurtz and otherwise accompanies him says that he does not fear the natives because "...they would not move until Mr. Kurtz gave the word", also claiming that "... the chiefs would come every day to see him. They were crawling…” (Conrad 97). He used them for his activities and let them make sacrifices to him, but again, the environment affects him just as heavily. The trader also states that he would disappear with them for weeks in search of ivory and that he would “…forget himself among these people” (94). He rejects civilization, and the help of modern medicine that comes with it, to stay with the natives. Marlow, on the other hand, is able not to be corrupted by darkness, but to exclude its horrors. He reacts nonchalantly to Fresleven's death, reacts to the helmsman's death by throwing his soiled shoes overboard, and flees as Kurtz nears the end of his life. Like the anonymous narrator, he also obstructs the truth, by refusing to hand over Kurtz's documents ("I refused to give the slightest piece of this package" (120)) and by telling his intended that "the last word he spoke was [his] name” (129). Mustafa and Kurtz both open themselves to the darkness when they choose to impose their influence on it and allow its influence to affect them in turn, while their counterparts must prevent its destruction from continuing beyond their deaths . The legacies of Mustafa and Kurtz exist as stories in themselves, symbolic, as they are, of colonialism as a whole. The destruction they causeare due to the main factors which are generally responsible for the phenomena of colonialism. Themes of hunger and power resonate throughout the descriptions of their lives. Images of hunger accompany Kurtz's early descriptions: "I saw him open his mouth wide --- it gave him a strangely voracious appearance, as if he wanted to swallow all the air, all the earth and the men in front of him. » (Conrad 100). Beyond simple greed, it is a demonstration of gluttony, an incessant march towards excess. This caused him to put his hunger before anything else; one’s health, sanity and self-preservation. Marlow says: "...the appetite for more ivory had overcome the...less material aspirations" (95). However, this went beyond the need for ivory, as the Marlows explained that Kurtz's rejection from the Society was because he "...lacked restraint in the gratification of his various desires..." (96). He had a hunger whose aim was not to satisfy, but to fill a void, a bottomless pit. Mustafa shared this hunger, but rather for the possession of women. He was obsessed with conquest, going so far as to fill his room with mirrors so that, "when [he] slept with a woman, it was as if [he] slept simultaneously with an entire harem" (Salih 27). . As for Jean Morris, his desire to possess her has taken over him so much that, when she offers sex in exchange for his most prized possessions, he thinks: "If she had asked... my life as the price , I would have paid for it” (130). In fact, this entire exchange is peppered with images linked to thirst and hunger: “My throat dried up from a thirst that almost killed me”, “…filling his mouth with pieces of paper that she chewed and spit out,” “…her lips are like forbidden fruit that must be eaten,” and so on (130). It was because Sa'eed could not separate himself from his need to always be victorious that he made himself a slave to his desires. For both authors, the use of hunger means that the search for satisfaction has become, in their minds, essential to survival. Ironically, this would rather lead to their demise. Their interest, of course, also involved the pursuit of power. The ways in which they achieve this goal differ slightly, but fundamentally share the same mechanics. By lying to their targets, Mustafa and Kurtz gained power through false projections. Mustafa led the women to believe that his interest in them was a promise for the future, going beyond one night, "...living with five girls simultaneously" and "...making each one feel like he 'would marry' (30-31). In addition to lying, he exercises his power by taking advantage of their trust, then betraying it. Kurtz betrays no one, but he works his way to becoming a god to those who would kill or be killed for him (like his mistress who stood on the shore to reach out to him even as the Pilgrims shot at him). He lets them believe that his weapons were “…thunder and lightning” (93). His power also came from the very wood of his voice. Even Marlow felt the effects: “Kurtz spoke. A voice! A voice! It rang deep to the end” (114). There was also power in Mustafa's voice, as he seduced women with his story. However, the difference lies in presentation: Mustafa gained his power by taking advantage of ignorance, while Marlow only had to present himself in a way to simply command it. Whether it is hunger or power, the connection with colonialism is therefore that the satisfaction of greed comes before everything, even life; the power and superiority exuded by the colonizers are a farce; and bitter ends follow those who choose to admire and praise this.