The Psychological and Societal Impact of Colonisation in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant”

Abstract

My thesis examines how colonialism psychologically, culturally, and morally damages both colonisers and colonised. Through Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant,” it argues that colonial power destroys individuality, suppresses cultural identity, imposes racial hierarchies, and generates moral corruption, revealing colonialism’s enduring destructive impact on human life.