Inner Darkness Essay Example For Students

Inner Darkness Essay Inner Darkness Reading Joseph ConradsHeart of Darknessis a true study of how men come to lose their hope in humanity. It also displays the overtly cynical and sometimes racist and purist overtones that plagued Europe in its early days. During a cruise along the River Thames, Charles Marlowe reminisces on his days sailing through Africa, and how the experience has shaped his life. The supporting players in his life, and his selective memories of each one, paints a picture of the unknowing, rather prejudiced man he was before, and the wiser man he has become. In Joseph ConradsHeart of Darkness, a combination of orientalisms view of the other, feminisms patriarchal socialization, and Friedrich Nietzsches nihilistic theories illustrates how overall prejudice leads to a fear of the unknown and clashes between cultures. Rather than trying to understand the natives, Marlowe and his colleagues take a position of control and sometimes antagonism towards them, leading to a realization that they have been sheltered by their Occidental lifestyles and missed out on vital life experience. Their only relation to the white man is as slaves, and to Marlowe, this is precisely how it should be. Watching the African-American rowers, he remarks We had enlisted some of these chaps on the way for a crew. Fine fellowscannibalsin their place' (Conrad 35). What does Marlowe truly mean by this last portion? Is he simply happy for the extra hands, or glad to see black men working for the whites as they were meant to do for so long? Edward Saids discourse on Orientalism strongly supports the latter. In his essay, simply titled Orientalism, he notes that the dynamic between whites and Orients a relationship of power, of domination, of varying degrees of a complex hegemony (Said 1870). And we do not help that relationship at all by using phrases such as in their place, which only serve to bring the Orients down and strain the already complex relations that exist between the two parties. Because of this, the few complimentary gestures extended towards the natives feels slightly less significant and makes the contrasting portrayalsall the morerepresentative of Marlowes lack of understanding. Although he considers the black sailors to be in their place, he still extends the occasional expression of sympathy. Watching the slaves practically on their deathbeds, he marvels that They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly nownothing but black shadows of disease and starvation' (Conrad 11). The word shadows says a good deal about how the blacks had been treated even before illness consumed them. Even watching them seconds from death, Marlowe cannot seem to get away from seeing in only the most negative terms possible. Itseems to indicate that once they are gone, what little sympathy he has for them will cease, and they will be all but forgotten. In his own essay onHeart of Darkness, Chinua Achebe mentions Conrads of human expression to the one and the withholding of it from the other (1616). Indeed, the black characters remain all but wordless for most of the story. Even the portrayal of the African coast is plagued by obscurity, and treated as otherworldly when compared to Europe. In her article Unspeakable Secrets, Anne McClintock describes Marlowes first view of the coast as struggle that goes beyond the question of perception and involves the very stuff of language itselfAfrica is protean and featureless because it has withdrawn beyond the horizon of new language (41). Knowing the historical context, the reasoning could be that the whites have kept the inhabitants in their place for so long that speech has completely escaped them. The problem is that by depriving them of their faculties of speech, Conrad has upset the balance betweenApollineand Dionysiac contrasts, as detailed by Nietzsche inThe Birth of Tragedy.He describes the differing ideals with Appolineart of the imagemaker or sculptor (Bildner) and the imageless art of music, which is that ofDionysos (Nietzsche). There must always be a certain contrast between the simple andAppolinicthemes and the more bombastic, Dionysiac scenes, something that Marlowe seems not entirely aware of. The story begins on the river Thames of Europe, described by our initial narrator as low shores that ran out to sea in vanishing flatnessbrooding motionless over the biggest, and the greatest, town on earth (Conrad 1). Due to its calming nature, the Thames serves as theAppolinehalf of the duo, leaving the River Congo, An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest (Conrad 24) to serve a as Dionysiac. One extreme cannot survive without the other, and to repress one side is to upset a delicate and extremely important balance. The few female figures suffer a similar treatment, as most of their actions lack true power, and the mens patronizing attitudes show that patriarchal disease is to blame. Even one of the most powerful of female characters, Marlowes aunt, is overshadowed by the contributions and power of her male superiors. Although she is dear enthusiastic soul' and is instrumental in sending Marlowe on his lifechanging journey, she is only able to accomplish the task because, in her own words, I know the wife of a very high personage in the Administrationand alsoa man who has lots of influence' (Conrad 5). Rather than helping him directly, she must instead rely on her connections to more powerful figures, all of whom are male. Les Murrays Widower in the country Essay Kurtz himself seems to have been living a lie, with his arrogance being the main obstacle between him and a greater understanding of the natives that surround him. Gerald Levin describes him as unlucky to have lost the protection of a fixed code (177), without even the very slight sympathy for the natives that Marlow has. Even on his deathbed, his idealism isfailingand his arrogance is evident, particularly in his stubbornness and how it affects those who had once admired him so greatly. The Russian man, for example, when recounting to Marlowe how the attack was Kurtzs doing, says He hatedsometimes the idea of being taken awayand then again. But I dont understand these matters. I am a simple man' (Conrad 59). Considering how long Kurtz has lived among these natives, could that explain why this Russian has such a selfdeprecating view of himself, and seems to be waning in his attention towards the man in question? As Said recalls, So far as th e Orient is concerned, standardization and cultural stereotyping have intensified the hold of the nineteenth-century academic and imaginative demonology of the mysterious Orient' (Said 1886). By not trying to truly understand his native people, and instead projecting his socalled superiority upon them, Kurtz has deprived himself of any true understanding of who they are. This culminates at last with his final words: The horror! The horror!' (Conrad 69). Gazing into the eyes of death, he sees where his false truths and delusions of grandeur have placed him. It is all too clear that he is dissatisfied with the results. It might not have ended this way had Kurtz been more aware of Nietzsches concept of unconsciousness. His description of how certain human beings unconsciously in the way we have described, and in accordance with centuries-old habitsand precisely because of this unconsciousness, precisely because of this forgetting, they arrive at the feeling of truth (Nietzsche 768) seems to apply perfectly to Kurtz. Having such high confidence in the capabilities of his mind, he allows himself to become stagnant and develops what Nietzsche calls a superman view of himself. But when faced with death, he wakes from this unconsciousness, and finds that the truth he has made for himself was selfcontained. He understands himself not by comparing to others, but by comparing others to himself, and demeaning those who not measure up. In the aftermath of his death, it proves to be an epiphany for Marlowe. His somber demeanor in the present portrays his new philosophy on life, how must inevitably give way to disillusioned maturity (Levin 177). It is best exemplified as he ends his story and apart, indistinct and silent, in the pose of a meditating Buddha (Conrad 74), a clear contrast from the wideeyed adventurer we were first introduced to. In summary, nihilistic conflicts ultimately tend to stem from a misunderstanding on some level. In the case of the whites and the natives, the lack of understanding towards their Oriental ways pushes them apart. Blacks are treated as servants at best, and borderline nonexistent at worst. As for the female characters, few as there are, the conflict there is more hierarchyoriented. Do women have any place in the work of men, as blacks supposedly do in the work of white men? They canmake an effort, but it tends to be overshadowed by the successes of their counterparts and demeaned by the patronizing malefemale dynamics of the 19thcentury. The rather brusque treatment ofboth of thesegroups leads us to Marlowes ultimate conclusion: intellect is ultimately futile, for it only leads us further from reason. It may be right that everyones idea of truth is different, but a glimmer of hopestill remains. Instead of basing our ideas on limited knowledge, we must give voices to the repressed,in a n effort tounderstand them. It is the first step we can take to prevent an entirely bleak future.