Hackneyed Phrases: Replacements of True Meaning
Orwell argues that the actual meaning of “certain topics” is lost when authors begin to choose words that are “hackneyed”. Rather than explicitly describing a topic in its entirety with deliberate and original word choice, authors often resort to commonly used phrases that seem to carry the full meaning of the message they wish to convey in a few simple words.

The “concrete” to which Orwell refers is essentially the meaning and weight a topic carries before an author explains it. Once an author chooses to discuss a topic with “hackneyed” phrases, the concrete loses its actual meaning and weight and “melts into the abstract”. With the use of such phrases, the author in a sense fails to fully explore and examine that topic. In such an instance, an author is not choosing individual words “for the sake of their meaning” to fully convey a message about a topic, but rather “tack[ing] together” prefabricated phrases. In doing so, an author does not discuss a topic, but rather under-evaluates and diminishes the magnitude of the topic.

Here, Fitzgerald introduces Daisy for the first time and explicitly makes a connection between the women and a sense of floating or flight. The weightless language such as “buoyed,” “fluttering,” “balloon,” and “flight,” suggest that the women are out of touch with reality because their wealth does not allow them to be aware of any troubles.

Daisy’s life is completely composed of leisure, relaxation, socializing, and parties, all of which are not accompanied with any sort of stress or work.

Fitzgerald exaggerates this lifestyle to the point of floating to demonstrate the extent to which Jordan, and especially Daisy are carefree.

Additionally, there is a magical sense to his description of the women because everything seems to be floating, giving a naturally weightless sense to the Buchanan’s household. This natural lack of gravity connects to the naturalness of the Buchanan’s wealth because they come from old money.

Fitzgerald also suggests a literal social mobility through the women’s sense of flight. The women’s ability to be a part of the upper class without work is contrary to the core principle of the American Dream, which dictates that if one works hard, one can rise up in class. However, Daisy seems to simply be born with complete freedom both economically and socially, which allows her to flutter and float.

Importance of the Home
It is human nature to want a place to belong–a rightful place in the world. Having a home is to have a sense of belonging and thus a sense of security. For Bartleby, who lives “in a solitary office, up stairs, of a building,” he has not a true home to call his own, but rather accommodations or a sufficient living space in which he can sustain himself in “a building entirely unhallowed by humanizing domestic associations”. Without the domestic feeling of a home, Bartleby is left without a place in a corporate world.

Melville’s use of “unhallowed” to describe the lack of “humanizing domestic associations” further suggests that there is something sacred or fundamentally right to having a home. As a home is a retreat from the harsh work world, staying in an office space, as Bartleby does, does not allow a place to retreat. Melville suggests that Bartleby’s living in an office rather than a home is somehow “unhallowed” or “[de]humanizing”.

Colours of Monotony
Adding to the narrator’s description of his extraordinarily dull office space, he seems to emphasize the blackness of the “everlasting shade” of the wall that is so closely pushed up against his window. As windows are intended to allow light and air flow through living spaces, the “unobstructed” and “lofty brick wall” hinders this healthy flow.

Not only does the wall physically obstruct the natural course of air and light through the office, creating a rather stuffy space, but it is also an aged, everlasting black shade constantly blocking any outside colours from entering the office. The attention to the colour of the wall suggests that the office in which the lawyer and scriveners work is devoid of any colour and thus has a spirit of uniformity about it.

As a part of the progressive movement towards having more legislation and restrictions to prohibit a laissez-faire government and corrupt business dealings in the late nineteenth century, the scriveners in the office must constantly copy and perform arduous, mundane, monotonous tasks. These tasks have the same dull essence as the black wall outside the office that obstructs light, air, and colour. In this sense, the “lofty black wall” is both a physical obstruction, and a physical representation of the corporate monotony of the nineteenth century.

Nippers v. Dwight
In this part of the lawyer’s description, Nippers, an odd individual, appears to be slightly overly compulsive about the angle at which his desk is balanced. In a modern sense, Nippers' slightly overly compulsive yet comical behaviour is comparable to Dwight’s behaviour in the popular American TV show The Office.

Dwight is also peculiar and works in a similar monotonous office environment. Trained in surveillance and karate, skilled in paintball and laser tag, and interested in sci-fi and pop culture, Dwight is in many ways a modern parody of the type of office worker Nippers is–obsessive and somewhat ridiculous from an outside perspective.

The bizarre behaviour of both Dwight and Nippers might speak in a larger sense about the environments in which they both work. Constantly faced with dull, tedious work tasks in a corporate setting, it is possible that both characters have inexplicably odd behaviour in order to diminish the monotony with which they are constantly faced.

In a sense, Dwight and Nippers' eccentricity can be seen as a form of relief from their industrious office environments.

Portrayal of Native Peoples
Through Britain’s lens of superiority, Marlowe sees the native people in Africa as nearly coming out of the land. He describes the shrill cry of a native as a “sharp arrow flying straight to the very heart of the land,” suggesting that the natives are so deeply rooted in the nature in which they live that their voices affect the land just as they seem to “[pour] into the clearing by the dark-faced and pensive forest”.

Marlow puts the natives on the same level of life and existence as the nature in which they live by painting an image of uncivilized, savage natives “with spears in their hands, with bows, with shields, with wild glances and savage movements” literally pouring from the forest, as if the forest is giving life to these “streams of human beings”.

By both personifying the forest to an extent and degrading the natives, the two forms of life seem to become one with another, as they coexist in nature and uncivilized harmony.

Similarly, director James Cameron’s Avatar depicts the native Navi people of Pandora similarly to how Marlowe describes the natives of Africa. The Navi people live in unity with their vibrant forest and maintain a balance between all forms of life.

As their forest sustains their everyday lives, the Navi revere, protect, and praise their forest, thus they essentially become one with another in perfect homogeneity.

Although Marlowe perceives the natives similarly to how the natives in Avatar are illustrated, Conrad uses this critique imperialist conception of natives; Conrad suggests perspectives influenced by industrialised civilization downplay the beauty and harmony of other lifestyles by degrading such ways of life to savagery.

Romanticised Imperialism
Conrad contrasts the insanity inducing realities of imperialism with romanticised conceptions of imperialism to suggest that this idealized perception acts as a veil to cover the underlying atrocities of imperialism.

While Kurtz’s final wimper acknowledges “The horror” of imperialism, his intended still believes that his efforts were noble, just, and magnanimous. She believes that “Men looked up to him” and that “his goodness shone in every act,” when in fact he acted as an agent of imperialism, or “The horror”.

Despite the actual darnkess and horror of imperialism, Kurtz’s intended is blinded by her romantic views of her fiancé’s work in Africa. Her blindness juxtaposed with the growing absurdity of those around her, suggests that perhaps the widely held romantic view of imperialism is a necessary veil to its true horrors.