Conformity Blog 42

Conformity is a necessity in society. Without conformity there would be no way for society to interact with each other in the way that they do because conformity allows people to judge the trustworthiness and other important aspects of a person before making deals and getting ripped off. For example, conformity in eating habits allows someone who is on a date to see if he is compatible with his date by watching his/her eating habits and her general behavior. Conforming to society can show whether the person has manners or is a slob. Conformity is also necessary when it comes to large groups of people interacting and living under law together because if everyone thought differently there would be no law and order.  

Under Pressure: Blog 41

Pressure seems to be one of those things in life that ever seem to go away. When were young pressure comes from our parents and school, when were older, pressure comes from trying to find a partner, work, economy. The idea that pressure never goes away though seems to be because pressure is like a pipe, parents take there pressure and stress out on there children, who in turn learn that pressure is acceptable and normally to portray on others, which leads to those children putting pressure on their kids when they grow up and the cycle keeps going.

Blog 40 Body #2

Kids responding after the teacher told them the first part of an idiom.

Freud’s greater argument however is that the ID actually controls how humans interact even though people themselves are not continence of there thoughts and actions. The ID makes decisions for people; however, since one cannot understand his/her ID people interoperate the ID’s decisions as his/her own conscience decision when in reality his/her brain has already made the decision and the conscious mind is the last to receive the message. Freud would describe Kurtz as someone who has let down all his filters and reverted back to the primitive: “men are not gentle, friendly creatures wishing for love, who simply defend themselves if they are attacked, but that a powerful measure of desire for aggression has to be reckoned as part of their instinctual endowment” (Freud 63). Through Kurtz, Conrad exemplifies Freud’s point, even though Conrad would not have known that this was Freud’s writings, because with absolutely no boundaries, Kurtz adapts to the African continent by going savage. Freud would argue that Kurtz’s killing sprees and savage nature towards the natives of Africa or his “neighbors” is simply his instinct and his ID controlling Kurtz because Kurtz lets down his boundaries and lets his unconscious mind take over his conscious.

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?