Heart of Darkness

I have to admit I was skeptical about this book at first and not only due to the none too cheery title.  The fact that one of the smarter people in our class expressed his dislike for this book left little hope for me.  However I was surprised in many ways by the novel.  Contrary to my expectations it did not drudge along lingering on every little detail and talking about all of the narrators feelings and thoughts.  That isn't to say that Conrad doesn't delve into many of the more interesting aspects of the human soul and mind.  The title "Heart of Darkness" refers not only to the heart of darkness in the Congo that Marlow and his crew are venturing deeper and deeper into but also the figurative hearts of darkness in the characters of the novel.  It is foreshadowed that one of the characters is going to resort to some kind of brutal savagery at some point in the novel.  In a place like this it would be surprising if someone didn't.  Everything seems decayed and dying from the old railway car that looked, " as dead as the carcass of some animal" to the people that are hiding underneath the trees that are in all forms of pain and look like they could drop dead at any second.

In class we are doing an activity called the envelope activity.  The Motif that i am supposed to be researching is Savagery or primitive behavior.  This novel is full of both of these especially since it is based in the primitive Congo where all of the people are primitive in the European view of the word.  One prime example i found of primitive behavior is when Marlow and the steamboat float by the village of natives.  These people all start to jump around and yell n languages nobody understands and in other words act like primitive people and in the eyes of the Europeans of the day, including the people on the steamboat, like savages.  Not only are the black natives in the Congo viewed as savages but they are treated savagely by the Europeans.  They are put in chains and driven like animals to do the will of the Europeans at the trading post.  They are often not even doing work that really needs to be done an example of this is the huge, pointless, artificial pit that the white people made them build just to keep them busy.  Even when the slaves have been worked to the point that they can no longer work they do not get any respite.  They are thrown aside to the sweltering heat of the trees where they are left to die of starvation or by one of the many wounds that they endure during their labor.

The Guest featuring an extended metaphor

The Guest by Camu is a prime example of existentialism. It presents many of the ideals of existentialists as well as many of the delimas that they face in their lives such as the decisions that they are going to make.  The decision that they ultimately choose is extremely important to the existentialists because they believe that you are essentially defined by the decisions that you make.  In The Guest Daru is faced with the decision of whether to allow the prisoner to escape or to do his duty to the Revolution and turn him over to the authorities. Without a higher power or moral beleif system to help him make this decision he is basically just doing what feels right and going with the flow.  He isnt writing these lyrics down ahead of time, hes freestyling it up, straight up going with the flow.  Hes no traditional singer that has the traditional systems to follow and the lyrics written down ahead of time by some other person.  He makes this decision by himself and it therefore shapes him and he is responsible for the consequences of this decision whatever it may be.  He decided to give the prisoner the chance to walk away and go free because this is what he feels is morally right in his mind, he would have had to face the consequences and take responsibilty for his actions to the other members of the french force but the prisoner follows this very existentialist rule and takes responsibility for his choice to kill his comrade and decides to go to prison.

Daru rejected the mens rule of law because the existentialists have their own morals which they decide themselves.  The actions that he took towards the prisoner, feeding him, unbinding him, and eventually letting him go free, define Daru as a morally honarable person in his mind and therefore he is honorable.

Extistentialism

In class this past week we learned about existentialism while at the same time reading The Stranger by Albert Camus outside of class.  One of the basic elements of existentialism is that you are created by the actions that you take or that the human essence is determined by your life choices.  This is shown in many ways in The Stranger as Meursalt's being and personality are essentially created by the ways that he acts.  How he acts is also very extistentialist.  He does things not because they are morally acceptable or expected by society but because they are something that he wants to do or something that he believes is right or honorable.  When he is attending his mothers funeral he goes against all of the common or expected social responses by not showing external grief and large amounts of respect for his deceased parent.  He smokes at her dead bodies side, drinks coffee with the caretaker, and doesn't cry or show any typical external signs of grief.

In class we also read The Guest which is by Camu as well and is an exceptional example of the existentialist values.  At the end of the story when he gives the prisoner a choice it may seem as if he is dodging the main belief of the existentialists and in their eyes becoming a coward by not making a decisive choice and just passing it along to the prisoner so that he can make the choice, but I believe that he did in fact make a choice.  By Giving the prisoner the option of either walking by himself all the way to prison or going free with money and supplies he did make a decision.  Anyone would believe that if given the choice of going free or going to prison one would choose going free.  This is a reasonable assumption that i believe the teacher made, he gave him the choice simply to make it so he partially followed his part of the bargain and to make it right in his mind which, to an an existentialist, is all that matters.  The fact that The prisoner decided to go to prison instead of taking the easy way out and going to freedom is a very existentialist idea as well.  The believe that as you are defined by your actions you should also take responsibility for them as well.  This man killed another man and in an existentialists mind the only thing that can be done is for him to take full responsibility for his actions.