The evil of untamed lifestyles within his soul

The evil of untamed lifestyles within his soul

The dark thoughts, which are usually ignored and not allowed to be brought up in conversation, are pushed back into the remote corners of the mind, but have the ability to run free when man is in his most vulnerable state. Sleep, the unconscious. It is in dreams where twisted stories of malevolence and horror take place. The souls core is full of sin from the first minute man is born.

Even Adam, the original man, who was born when the earth began its timeline, has sin running through his blood. He was Gods first human creation, but destined to fall into the hands of the devil. Illustrated through chiaroscuro, every man has a heart of darkness that is drowned out by the light of civilization. However, when removed from civilization, the raw evil of untamed lifestyles within his soul will be released. Once the innate evil is released, it has the opportunity to grow stronger, and perhaps, more powerful than reason. By means of delayed decoding, Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness advances and withdrawals as in a succession of long dark waves borne by an incoming tide.

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It is a night journey into the unconscious and confrontation of an entity within the self. The true night journey can occur only in sleep or in a waking dream of a profoundly intuitive mind. The Heart of Darkness recaptures the past of one man who chose to travel inside himself. The narrative of this extremely ambiguous novella is trying to tell the reader a dream- making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation (pg. 95).

Each mans case is his own, his presence is made up of his past, which Marlow experiences the terror of journeying into the territory of his heart because what he finds is darkness, as he drifts along the winding snake river, away from civilization, and the safety of the Garden. Marlows sensations, as he travels up the river, and back in time, are unique to him and cannot be fully shared with another man, because that man has not walked in Marlows shoes, with the same perception and mind. Although the devil of violence, and the devil of greed, and the devil of hot desire (pg. 81) shine through the darkness of the jungle, Marlow can never bring himself to fully condemn the imperialist project in Africa because it would threaten his identity as a European.

As he encroaches along the path of self-discovery, beating on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past (The Great Gatsby, pg. 189) the first glimpses of what man is really made up of are too much to bear. The harsh descriptions of the white mans brutality against the natives arise queasiness in any sane person.

To admit that Marlow is part of this absurd form of living would characterize him a savage, something a white man could never be, since evil is symbolized through dark colors. Marlow is confronted with a series of exteriors and surfaces, such as the rivers banks and the forest walls around the station, which he must interpret in order to see its true purpose for being. The exterior of a persons face can tell the story of their past, whether they have suffered for the majority of their lives or have lived a sheltered lifestyle. A man can be considered good until he is faced with a dilemma. The true nature of himself is depicted through his choice in actions when handling the crisis.

In Marlows journey along the Congo, and within himself, he discovers that the meaning of an episode is not inside the kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze (pg. 68). Metaphorically, the symbolism, represented by the haze around the glow, is larger than its narrative vehicle, the glow, but the sensory quality of the metaphor, the haze, is essentially impressionist. Civilization acts as a buffer to prevent men from reverting back to their darker tendencies. While society seems to restrain these savage tendencies, it does not get rid of them.

These primeval inclinations will always be like a black cloth lurking in the background. Man is protected from himself by society with its laws and watchful neighbors. Someone who has never exceeded the city limits cannot imagine the powerful connection between himself and the devil as he steps delicately between the butcher and the policeman, in the holy terror of scandal and gallows and lunatic asylums (pg. 122).

Without the safeties of society and apart from civilization, Kurtz is a point within the circular boundary of fate. He is able to exercise free will, and restraint, within the predestined circumstances already laid out before him. Kurtzs choice to abandon all restraint leads to the death of his reason.

Only after he completely falls into the bottom of a precipice where the sun never shines (pg. 147) does he realize how horrible his life has become. Kurtz saw how his past made up the person he is as he lies on his deathbed.

He doesnt completely condemn his lifestyle, but merely acknowledges its horror.Instead of being in total control of nature, the Europeans in Africa are at its mercy, in the same way a sleeper is at the hands of his dreams. The Europeans civilized forms of rationality only produce chaos as they fight the ways of the jungle. Nature, or God, tries to push the intruders, including Marlow, out of Africa by presenting every obstacle imaginable.

Even before he sets out, omens present themselves to Marlow, including the destruction of his boat. After this catastrophe, Marlow asked himself what he was to do there, now his boat was lost (pg. 87). However, without this delay in his journey, Marlow wouldnt arrive in the Inner Station at the time he did, changing his experiences with Kurtz, and perhaps altering Marlows resulting enlightenment. Marlow feels the presence of a higher being working against him and his crew.

Gods river seems to want to expel the Europeans from Africa altogether: its current makes travel upriver slow and difficult, but the flow of water makes travel downriver, back toward civilization, rapid and seemingly inevitable. Its harder to travel back in time, when the present is constantly pushing man forward. No man is secluded from the hands of the omnipotent being, which controls yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Every empire has its rise and fall according to the predestined laws of time. Civilization is superficial. The level of civilization is directly related to the physical and moral environment a community is presently in. It is a much less stable or permanent state than society may think.

Ordinary people who live with the nave presumption of their resting grounds are now intruders whose knowledge of life was to Marlow an irritating pretense, because he felt so sure they could not possibly know the things he knew ( pg. 149) after returning from the heart of darkness. These people want to look like they live a good life, even though evil pervades every aspect of their being, regardless of the color of skin, for they are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead mens bones, and of all uncleanness (Matthew 23:27). Like the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Marlow feels a Buddhist influence from the past, telling him that he must share his elevated wisdom with those, who have been sleep walking through their day to day existence, whose lives have not allowed them the opportunity to travel to such remote corners of the mind.

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