*Please do NOT use complicated words and phrases. Please make it look like I wrote it and not someone with a master’s degree
*Please always include at least one quotation from the text, but only one or two sentences
*Please make sure that text will not show more than 15% in plagiarism tester.
20th Century Modernism: Joseph Conrad
Lecture
Read Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and then the below overview of this week’s topic.
In Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the world is portrayed as a dark place filled with contempt. The uncertainty of the present is overshadowed by an ill-defined past that is violent and filled with esoteric cultures that, to the white interlopers, defy reason. As colonialism in late 19th and early 20th century increased, Western literary writers were learning more about what, to them, were the peripheral cultures of the world, such as those of Africa and Asia. The cultural differences between the regions created a culture of xenophobia in literature and between the accompanying societies.
This distrust of anything foreign and new arose in the vacuum that was created when a generation of people began rejecting the past and their cultural identities. This created a world where writers began creating new myths in place of the old myths and systems they rejected. Modern philosophers relied on reason to define the world, but lacked the perspective to relate how this heightened sense of perception and acumen provided them, or anybody, with a sense of place. Rejection of the past and denial of the existence of a spiritual, moral authority created a literature based on a sensual, hedonistic lifestyle that was defined by overindulgence to compensate for the lack of an established identity.
In reading modern literature, look for how this lack of identity resulted in storylines and characters stuck in a state of transition, such as returning from war but never fitting in, or falling in love but never realizing stability through social institutions such as marriage. Even if marriage is achieved in such storylines, it doesn’t last. The character is in a psychological maze, which is expressed in the story’s topic, themes, and characters. In Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, this maze is examined to its darkest conclusion. We can try to identify the morality and historical variables that would define the situation and give it meaning—but without cultural and social context, we are left in perpetual flux. The desperation of characters trying to rationalize a world without moral centers creates madness and turmoil.
In Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad focuses on man’s struggle against the famine of body and soul with the text’s narrative depicting the struggle between the material and spiritual realities of man’s existence. The river is symbolic of the great wellspring nourishing man’s lust, fear, and capacity for evil. The land around the river is wild and unholy—or, as described in the story, “the earth seemed unearthly.” At the outset of the story, the narrator sees the Congo as a land disjointed and removed from reality; more directly, it is a realm that is void of rules pertaining to civility. The journey is defined with the concrete purpose to “talk with Kurtz”; but when Marlow is faced with coping with the “unearthly” aspects of his journey, the stress is almost unfathomable.
Marlow is faced with the stress of the fact that the natives are cannibals and devouring rotten goat‘s meat in the belly of the steamboat, the possibility of being murdered in his sleep, and the possibility of Kurtz being dead already. With all these unnatural elements, the narrative becomes increasingly laden with a sense of paranoia and a deflated expectation that all this work and suffering is for nothing. This stressed reality removes the commonplace from the act of business—retrieving a business partner gone rogue—and replaces it with the supernatural quest of seeking Kurtz, a man approaching the status of a deity. The spiritual elements of Marlow’s journey are paralleled with those of a heroic character journeying into the netherworld, where he will be battling not only for his life and sanity, but his soul.
Assignment 11.1 – Heart of Darkness: Psychology
Assignment 10.1: Write a one (1) page paper with clearly defined terms, topic, and developed thesis sentence that supports the idea that Kurtz is the hero/protagonist of the story (even if you disagree with that assertion).
IMPORTANT: Make sure that you include the signal phrase (title of text and full name of author) in your opening paragraph, and that you directly reference the text with at least one quote, properly formatted for MLA.
DRAW SPECIFICALLY FROM THE TEXT. DO NOT PLAGIARIZE. DO NOT REFERENCE OUTSIDE SOURCES (Google, Wikipedia, student guides, encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc.) FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT.
USE STANDARD MLA HEADING (see MLA Style Sheet under “Class Information”), CREATE YOUR OWN TITLE FOR YOUR ASSIGNMENT, AND DOUBLE-SPACE ALL WRITING.
When you have completed the assignment, save a copy for yourself in an easily accessible place and submit a copy to your instructor using Moodle.
