Introduction: The Concealment of Civilization; A Vain and Floating Appearance

      In Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Marlow gains insight into the true absurdity and discontinuity of the world. As he travels further into the darkness, he is more free to pursue an uncontrollable journey into the representation of mankind. And, throughout his fruitless endevours Marlow encounters what is surely his most fulfilling and important discovery- "the absurd gap between what we profess to be and what we are." It is through art, alientation, langange, and nature that Marlow finds his concealed "hidden self" and gains a better truth on the disguise civilization has put on his own existence. Indeed, Frederick Karl and Sigmond Freud's idealology provide a modern rendition to this skewed relationship between ourselves and the universe. Consequently, in stressing these irrational elements in humanity- Marlow and the reader are able to travel further into the unconscious and disinteregate from reality.

Essay Points!

Intro: The Concealment of Civilization; a Vain and Floating Appearance

Main Points:
My main points will be on the massive symbolism in Heart of Darkness
The absurd and pointless, meaninglessness of life
The gap of reality and appearance: what we are and what we profess to be
The inevitable darkness of mankind and the illusions that cloud the truth of this nilihism
The irrational and rational of exsistence
The suffering of alientating unimaginable "banality of evil"
**I will be covering mostly Karl's psychoanalytic work/essay on his troubling truths.

Karl

In Karl's essay he explores the symbolism of "darkness". What is the darkness? We see that both as we get further into the jungle in the Heart of Darkness we also get further into the sleeping unconscious and so, further into the darkness. This leads us into the hidden self Karl shows us and also into more and more of a huge gap between what we are now and what we used to be. This massive alienation poses an image of man where their are no secrets to be had, no wishes to be fufilled, and all the horrors imaginable. But the psyche must accept these conditions and his troubling sense as he can become more conscious of himself and his truths, his lies, his dreams, his horrors. The many symbols in Heart of Darkness suggest a plethora of meanings from sex to power to death. But it is through discovering the symbols through the darkness that we gain insight into the true light of this story and inevitable to the true evil.

Freudians

In "What is Psychoanalytic Criticism?" Freudian theories of repressed and unconscious states are regarded as his important points in his main motivating interpretations. Social stability and civility though have repressed these natural instincits - only able to be revealed through practices such as art, languange, dreams and so on.
An idea i gave produced from Freuds developments is that when one sees another induvidual with a manifestation of themselves- but something they themselves have repressed- displaced emotions of hate or fear result. Moreover this could be the result of a defense mechanism to oneself since the individual was suppressed by other forces such as society, culture, customs and etc. Yet, my question would be although Freud brings these issues to the forefront - whats the solution, and more importantly would he desire to destroy repression and the disguised instincts? ...personally, all i think that would evolve from that would be a travel back to a dog eat dog world in the early centuries of mankind. We evolved this way for a reason. Some things do indeed need to be repressed. Some kind of order needs to remain in such a chaotic world.

The Horror, the horror

"The Horror, the horror."
In this phrase, Kurtz is talking about the uncivilized cannibals. The horror is how these cannibals are savages and have lost complete touch with their humanity. The horror is how easy and quick such a manifestation can take place. Their mannerism, moral, and ideals have gone down the drain and the ego is completely lost. The id has taken over rapidly and the horror is that these morals take so much time to instill and yet they can be destoryed in a matter of hours, days or weeks. Humanity, civilized behavior and social stability are virtues in a society but the cannibals have lost it all and Kurtz sees how easily humanity can be destroyed when survival and animal instict needs to take place. It displays to every individual that the id in each of us is that that far- and the horror Kurtz talks of is how scary it is that this id is not that far at all - it could come out at any second- and no one is safe.

Marlow's Journey 2

The current was more rapid now. The reflection off the water made you creepy all over. You can't understand. These little things make all the great difference. Of course the future is a good influence to take care of myself. It made me tingle with enthusiasm. This was the power of the wilderness- every altruistic sentiment- it won't be forgotten. The reflection vanished, and i shook my head as if sorry for my disorientation. Then i brightened up. "Never mind!" i cried, encouragingly. With a toss of my head towards the hill, it seemed to become gloomy all of a sudden. One moment an overcast and bright the next. "Are we in time?" asked the manager. I turned towards the water to find my reflection again. One moment it shone through the sunshine and gone the next with the shadows.

Marlow's Journey

I had been very long on the road. As i approached the dark glow from the villages I found myself at the hissing river. It seemed to remind me of - a dream... yes a dream. It was subtle and penetrating and its essence was uneasy. Was this dream real? Did i see it? What did it want? By heaven! This dream must have been real- to inspire such a tremor. The silence drove the dream-sensation further. After all, i was disturbed and the air of mystery would deepen under my feet and without a wink the feeling disapeared. It was a great comfort- yet not knowing- ever know its true essence left me empty and worried. All this energy wasted, on an unknown dream so delicate and so far. There was an old hippo on the bank of the river that had a bad habit of getting in and out of the water and roaming the night grounds. I walked passed the hippo and continued the twisted river along the spoiled path.

Heart of Darkness 2

In paragraph 58, Marlow describes a painting Kurtz made of "a woman, draped and blindfolded, carrying a lighted torch." The message that Kurtz is trying to send is both a symbolic and ironic point. Kurtz is ironically trying to show a woman who is guided by blind justice with a torch of light. However, if she's blindfolded- why would she need the torch anyways? It's a powerful paradox and it shows the amount of ignorance in the Heart of Darkness. It is "supposed" to represent wisdom, knowledge, and good. However it actually represents ignorance, savagery, and misunderstandings. Now, at this point in the story i think Marlow would agree with this message because he's opposed to London's desire to "civilize" Africa. And this symbol is perfect for the message of London's mission. Through London's ignorance and their own savagery they have the blind arrogance of thinking their ways are any better than Africa's and that they must destroy another's culture because it is different.

Heart of Darkness

Marlow begins his tale of a journey with London in the old times to show how London was "when the Romans came here." It was a place of darkness with death, disease and depression. Marlow tries to show how London, now a place of luxury and civilization was once a place of savagery. The connection between London in Roman times and the colonization of Africa is that they think that Africa is a place of darkness, uncivilized and needing to be conquered. Using their power, hate, and ignorance they want to take over what was once a place of mystery (white) and lead it towards darkness. It is this idea itself that leads these men towards "the heart of darkness" as they ignorantly think one culture is better or less detestable than another. It is this blindness on a massive scale that leads them to a desire to conquer what is present- "the white patch" - Africa.