Well, I think the reading points suck, but only because of their obviousness, so here goes. The whole novel presents itself as a monolith to human duality, but that in and of itself is kind of obvious. The natives appear as simple cannibalistic barbarians while the whites appear to be imperialistic marauders, swarming across the country and sucking up all the resources they can with the labor that's available at the cheapest price, their morality. Still in some ways the book almost seems to be a testament the old bible testament too much knowledge can be a bad thing, such as with the story of Adam and Eve.
While the novella as a whole can be seen as a simple difference between good and evil, the difference between ignorance and knowledge comes into play here. The Africans aren't necessarily good so much as stupid, they don't really understand the hatred and the fear that drive the whites so they don't feel the same. Whereas the whites are much more knowledgeable and complete nightmares as a result. They don't understand the natives anymore than the natives understand them, but they do understand that there is profit to be made, and a people too stupid to know to use it so all they see is an opportunity to dominate.
This is further reinforced by Marlow's desire to reach Kurtz. He sees Kurtz as someone with all the answers, with all the knowledge, since he is somehow able to stay here in this jungle. The more Marlow sees of the travesty that is Africa at this point the more he wants to know why this all happened. He's seeking an answer, but in the end all Marlow is shown is "the horror, the horror" of the African country.
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I think you're too negative about things Matthew, these points don't suck, they are kind of obvious but that just makes it easier to relate to. First point, "Humans act inhumanly toward their fellow humans." Basically anything you studied in the past could prove this point. Example: Slavery. It has been around for all of time, and in Heart of Darkness the Europeans treat the Africans as their slaves, on their own home turf.
ReplyDeleteSecond Point, fact: Humankind’s nature is dualistic in that it contains the potential for both good and evil. All human’s have a competitive nature, some stronger than others. Example: Kurtz and Marlow, at first Kurtz seems a “fine fellow” to Marlow, but later on his dualistic nature comes out and the perspective changes.
Once again, this is to be continued.
I don't think the points suck either, it allows the reader to relate to more and understand the point fully, rather than understanding only a little and not getting what the novella is trying to convey.The first point of humans acting inhumanly toward their fellow human makes me so irritated. It is a fault in our history like Stasha said, and it also reminds me of a speech Mother Teresa gave on abortion. When she says something like, if we tell a mother it's okay to kill her own child, then how can we tell other people it's not okay to kill each other. It just makes me want to slap someone. While this does occur in the novella the inhumanity is from the European's to the Africans to do the European's work so they can benefit.
ReplyDeleteThe second point of good and evil, makes me raise a question, what is good and evil? If your the Africans the Europeans are evil because you are slaves to them and if your White then the African's are evil because they're ignorant. I don't agree with the African's being stupid, they know what they need to know to survive in their habitat, not the White's.
I think that your question about what is good and what is evil, is a good question. It all depends on your perspective. Like you said Brit, to the Africans, the Europeans are the evil and then vice versa.
ReplyDeleteAs for the third bullet, Conrad not only points out how people can be evil, but how it's in human nature. We're selfish, not caring what others think or feel, it's all just who we are. Example: The Europeans hate the Africans, they are just pure evil and don't even care.
There are many examples of humans acting inhumanly towards each other in this novel. This theme is very important to the novel because it shows how little the whites think of the natives and how callous and uncaring they can be. Marlow seems to be the only one to realize that the natives to are human, such as the time when the man who steered the ship was killed and how horrified he was after it, though he does little to stop the injustices done to his fellow man. Just to give one example of inhumanity, the accountant getting mad because of people dying outside his office, when he could be out there caring or helping. Instead he is complaining about the noise they are making and the fact that they exist.
ReplyDeleteThe cannibals come to mind after I read the second point. They could have overtaken everybody on the steamer but choose not to, instead they eat their rotten buffalo meat (before it gets thrown overboard) and work for Marlow better than he could have asked for. The cannibals have the potential to be man eating beasts but choose not to and only do good.
The third point is rather difficult for me to come up with a clear cut response, but I would say Kurtz faced his own evil nature and had disastrous consequences. The consequence was death. After realizing how he could control the natives, his evil nature took hold of him and in the end he realized “the horror” of what he had done and died as a result of poor health because of the “unsound methods” he was using to procure the ivory.
I don't think Kurtz viewed himself as evil, or that he died as a result of his...(evilness?), if that were the case, then you would not have seen him control the Africans which he did to attack the boat. I also think referring to cannibals as beasts is a bit biased, who are we to judge someone based on their eating habits?
ReplyDeleteAnd not to play the devil's advocate here, but what defines the Europeans as evil, I mean by today's standards sure their evil and diabolical, but for the time they just acted normally, it is Kurtz and Marlow that act odd.
Eating habits? If someone came at you and tried to eat wouldn't you think that they were not necessarily your freind.The Europeans wouldn't be evil if they were there to truly help but they are there to benefit them selves. How did Marlow act odd?
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