Blog 39 #1 Body

Even though Conrad would not have been able to know Freud’s studies when he published Heart of Darkness, many of Freud’s beliefs are displayed in Conrad’s work because Conrad was able to write an accurate account of what life is like when there are no boundaries or rules. Through Kurtz’s fiancée, Kurtz is explained as a very civilized and kind loving man; however, when Marlow encounters Kurtz in the heart of darkness, Marlow is originally taken aback by how savage and native Kurtz seems: “I saw on that ivory face the expression of somber pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror — of an intense and hopeless despair” (Conrad 422). After being surrounded by darkness, lawlessness, freedom, Kurtz began to revert back to his primitive behavior of lusting for power. Conrad’s description of Kurtz reverting back to his primitive self is identical to that of Freud who argued that in a lawless situation, humans will always turn to their strongest emotions which are the yearn for sex and power. Furthermore Murfin discusses Freud’s belief in the double mind: “He (Freud) called the predominantly pasional, irrational, unknown, and unconscious part of the psyche the ID or ‘it’. The ego, or ‘I’, was his term for the predominantly rational, logical, orderly, conscious part” (Murfin 114). While Conrad could not have know Freud’s writing, the way Conrad discusses the ID and the conscience without naming them but instead describing them is masterful. Furthermore, the fact that Conrad explains how someone is civilized only so long as they are governed but as soon as they leave a safe environment the ID takes over is the true masterpiece in Heart of Darkness.

Heart of Darkness Essay Paragraph 1 Blog 38

Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is a reflection on the depths of the human psyche. Like Freud Heart of Darkness deals with appearance vs. reality and also the idea that all humans have subconscious actions that they cannot control but there mind and body understand. In Heart of Darkness the journey to the ID is exemplified through Kurtz who began his life as a refined and respected man in Europe; however, soon after arriving in the heart of Africa, Kurtz is enveloped with his deep desire for power and soon turns rouge. Marlow also begins to develop ideas about his sub conscious and his beliefs; however, Marlow tends to view himself as a spectator then one of the pieces on the board and so he is able to control his dark desires. While the Heart of Darkness is able to masterfully skew the readers perceptions by switching common motifs like black and white to mean the opposite of what they should represent; the true genius in Heart of Darkness is Conrad’s ability to analyze the psyche and portray how human beings do not actually have free will but are simply controlled by their most primal and least developed instincts of lust and power.

Blog 38 Essay Ideas

My idea for the Heart of darkness essay revolves around the idea that people do not make choices out of their free will but are instead forced into the situations that they encounter. It will also incorporate Freud’s thinking in the subconscious vs the conscious and Conrad’s decisions which show that Marlow experiences are those that a common person could encounter.

Fredrick R. Karl Blog 37

I agree with Fredrick R. Karl in his idea that in order to analyze the heart of darkness correctly and for its full effect, it is impossible to compare it to English literature and it must instead be compared to works that are more philosophical in nature and present a character that is alone and out of society. Karl mentions works like Kafka’s Metamorphoses and calls the main character “underground”. While reading this passage and reading about the “underground” character, Holden from Catcher In The Rye which was written after heart of darkness by more then a century, it seems like these deep anti social characters make novels deeper then others because they serve to give people insight into places in their mind that they may not want to travel or are not able to truly grasp. My question would be does reading novels with characters that are not mainstream actually help influence the self discovery more because it forces the author to look inside him/herself in an attempt to find something that everyone yearns for as a whole and not an individual?

Blog 36 Murfin

The most interesting idea for me in Murfin’s article is the idea that the Heart of Darkness is “not a disguised expression of Conrad’s personal, repressed wishes; it is rather a manifestation of the desires of the whole human race once had but were repressed after becoming civilized” (117). The ID is extremely important to Freud essential argument and I agree with Murfin that it is not Conrad’s subconscious that is writing Heart of Darkness but rather something that is engrained in all humans that eventually we as a society grow out of and Conrad was simply able to tap into one of those primal feelings. However, the question I pose is did the author know that it was his subconscious ID that he was tapping into, and do the writers of stories like Hamlet know what they are including when they write ideas like the Oedipal Complex.

Journal Entry 26 Blog 35

Today was a long day, after waiting for the chief to finish his daily hunting, which took two days, I was suddenly intercepted by a courier who told me he had a message for just my eyes. After taking the letter from him I proceeded into my cabin where I read in the dark, to make sure no one could spy, a letter that told me to enter the jungle and follow a secret path to where I could finally find the golden man I have been looking for. The next morning packed up some equipment and set out through the jungle, when I finally found the secret path that had obviously been walked on my many people, I was quickly enveloped in a bright mist that blinded me for quite some time until I tripped over some sort of root. At closer inspection however, the root was a bone. As I scurried away from the hard, white, club, I was heard a voice that I could not locate. “Do not be freighted child” suddenly, I felt a sharp pain on my head and I was instantly knocked unconscious. It has been, what I assume to be, at least 6 hours that I have been locked in a room. While it is a splendid room, with paintings and furnishings, it can only be noticed that it has accumulated a large amount of dust from not having its warm doors opened to anyone for years.

Journal Entry 25 Blog 34

After waiting two weeks for new supplies that would allow us to continue our journey down the river they finally arrived on “the worlds fastest train” as it is known in England, we finally began our journey to the next checkpoint. Our destination, the biggest city established thus far, an encampment with walls and about 10 barracks that house both supplies and colonists. As we arrived on shore, two cannibals instantly greeted me; however, they were dressed in finer clothing then I had on my own back. After unloading the countless supplies we had received upstream with the blinding light in our faces, I set out to meet the manager. Upon arriving at his mansion, it quickly became apparent that the people of his city called him the chief.  After some idle chatting with the butler, I was finally told to come back tomorrow to meet with the chief because he was “out hunting for today”.

Question 6; Blog 33

Kurtz was depicting the irony of trying to bring light into a dark place because the woman carrying the torch was blindfolded. Furthermore Marlow sees a scariness in the way the light bounces on the woman’s face which signifies that trying to light a country may not always be the best thing. At this point in time Marlow would agree that trying to light the darkness is not a good thing to do but sometimes darkness should be left alone. Like his example of England, all places have been miserable at some point in time.

Heart of Darkness Blog 32

In heart of darkness, the dark and shadowy unknowing of Africa is displayed as ignorant when Marlow describes how England was once a place where prisoners were sent by the Romans but is now a place of great prosperity. His description of England is the same as how the other sailors were describing Africa and his use of ancient Rome shows that all places change, and all places must be brought out from the ruble.