Heart of Darkness and Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents - Essay Example

The Author’s Name] [The Professor’s Name] [The Course Title] [Date] Heart of Darkness and Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents Within Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Marlow asserts that "the mind of man is capable of anything--because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future" (Conrad 109.) His "psychological self" is coerced into adapting to the rustic environment of the Congo hence disturbing the balance between his id, ego and superego. While adapting to his environment, Marlow begins to disregard societal standards and hence his "psychological sense" is altered in that Marlow's ego and super ego subside in his overall nature, resorting to the "pleasure principle" that we now call the id. Marlow's id begins to cease control of his personality and his innate instinctive nature is released. It is this imbalance of his "psychological self" which acts as an instigator for the evil found in him and all men. When Marlow states that "Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world," (Conrad 105) he is trying to depict his journey up the river as a representation of his discovery of the innate wickedness present in all mankind. His disregarding of his ego and super ego can be seen when he says, "but if you try to shout I'll smash your head with'...'I will throttle you for good" (Conrad 148.) In Heart of Darkness, Kurtz's last words depict his terror and his realization of his final fate, "The horror! The horror!" (Conrad 154) Kurtz realizes how far he has strayed from society, and finally admits to his evil acts in Africa. Hence, it was the imbalance of the characters "psychological selves" due to displacement from society (society gave them the sense of right and wrong) that caused the innate evil to reveal itself in the characters Marlow and Kurtz. The augmented id created a disproportion between the other counterparts of the "psychological self" and thus facilitated the intrinsically evil nature of all men including Marlow and Kurtz. The underlying emotions, beliefs, feelings, and impulses are not available to us at a conscious level. He believed that most of what drives us is buried in our unconscious. Like mentioned above, these choirboys and sophisticated Europeans never imagined that they would be acting as they did when they reached their respective destinations. The immense unconscious id took over in many of the characters but when brought back into society returned to their previous balances. While Marlow's trip up the river into the Congo is on the surface a mission to find Kurtz, symbolically is it Marlow is going into the jungle to find a part of himself. Like Kurtz, Marlow had only good intentions while making his way to find the rogue chief of the Inner Station. Marlow is the representation of who Kurtz had been upon entering the Congo, while Kurtz is a foreshadowing of what Marlow stands to become should he not learn and take heed from what has happened to Kurtz. While a progression into the wilderness seems to be like going back in time, it is also a testing ground for Marlow. He has to learn to suppress the 'savage' instincts that are imbedded inside of every human so that he does not become what Kurtz has become. From his contact with Kurtz, Marlow learns about the two sides of every man. He learns about the good, decent, law-abiding side, and he also discovers the human capability of evil. Kurtz, having been away from his own culture and society for so long, had allowed himself to fall into a primitive behavior. He hoarded ivory and allowed humans to be murdered, their heads impaled on sticks. These heads showed that Mr. Kurtz lacked restraint in the gratification of his various lusts (Conrad). He allowed the natives to worship him as a god; no doubt feeding is ego, pushing him further and further over the edge and into his own delusional world. Marlow witnessed this god-like behavior of Kurtz and was fascinated by it, himself being sucked in to the primordial behavior. It isn't until Kurtz is on his deathbed and utters those famous last words, 'The horror! The horror!' that Marlow realizes the capacity of evil that man has and takes a step back from the brink. He found himself close to becoming what Kurtz had become, yet, through Kurtz's death, he is able to turn away from it. He realizes when Kurtz died the man finally had to come to terms with the atrocities he had committed, because he was presented with a 'supreme moment of complete knowledge (Conrad).' Marlow saw the horror in the truth of Kurtz's life, and not wanting to end up like him, he decided to turn his back on the life Kurtz presented him with and return to civilization. Kurtz is waiting for the ship to sail, and while he does he begins to tell the story of what has happened to him to those aboard the ship. The unnamed narrator (who some believe represents Conrad himself) seems to be the only person genuinely interested in listening to Marlow. The other shipmates 'might have been asleep (Conrad)' but Marlow is so intent on spreading his message that he doesn't even seem to notice. He while speaking he refers to his audience as 'you fellows' and although it is an insignificant mistake. He is focused on one thing. The narrator of the story is fascinated by what Marlow has to say and obviously takes it to heart, yet at the same time he comments on Marlow's obscurity and mysteriousness. Ultimately, the meaning behind Heart of Darkness left up to the reader to decipher. While many have read the book and find it a racist work in disguise, it is obviously much more than just that. A reader must be able to look beyond the obvious to uncover Conrad's message, a message that introduces the reader to a notion of a kind of 'darkness' within every man. Many people find this notion hard to grasp, a problem that may, on part, be because of the way Conrad himself wrote the novel. Conrad puts forth the abstract idea of this 'darkness' but fails to adequately define or explain it. This statement seems accurate because the idea of 'darkness' is left rather vague and ambiguous, however, Conrad may have meant to do that on purpose. Conrad was most obviously a brilliant author and knew what he was doing while composing Heart of Darkness. He wanted to lead the reader on a journey into their on consciousness so that they might come across the same epiphany that Marlow did. Had Conrad defined everything as they wanted it to be, it would take away from the reader's own interpretation of things. Conrad himself once wrote, 'The thinker plunges into ideas, the scientist into facts.' He left it too vague purposely. "The commandment 'Love thy neighbor as thyself' is the strongest defense against aggression..." (Freud, 278) In this way he is illustrating the unachievable targets that civilized culture set for each man; man is doomed to fail in reaching these targets, and therefore directly from his own society's rules that he can never achieve and will always feel guilty about not attaining. In this way each culture and society set man up every day to fail and not live up to what he has now internalized as the correct way of living. Therefore it will be impossible to be happy when each day the targets man has for his actions and thoughts can never be met; thus using the current theory causes hurts to the psyche continually and directly increases the discontentment with life in its current situation. (Hayes, 43-47) Freud does not postulate any solution to the above problems. Society will have to continue to control man and his instincts, especially his aggression. Using our current methods to achieve this, the super-ego will continue to hurt the ego and cause the persistent feelings of discontentment with each in his own cultural; each man harboring a secret wish that life could move back to a simpler time, something that was never there. Freud holds out only one small hope this is his methods of coping, he offers towards the beginning of the text. "The life imposed on us is too hard for us to bear: it brings too much pain, too many disappointments, too many insoluble problems." (Freud, 130) Therefore he offers three types of measure to help in life: powerful distractions, substitutive satisfactions and intoxicants. His offer reduces man to a being that is hurt by his own thinking and these methods take man away from thinking; this amounts to: work hard, gardening, and have a drink, but do not rely only on one of the measures that is too dangerous. In order to fully understand his reasoning why civilization causes discontent for man his argument must be followed from the beginning. Freud postulates two opposing instinctual drives: the libido and the death drive. Within each of these areas are the instinctual drives, contained within the libido the drives that we consider positive, for example love. The death drive contains the drives that society would consider negative, for example aggression. (Milne, 22-25) Civilization, Freud contends, is built on harnessing the libido and sublimating the death drives. Harnessing the libido and sublimation of the death drives results in unfulfilled expression and desires within man, therefore the outcome is anxiety and discontentment for man within civilized society. Focusing on Freud's reasoning and how society exerts power over the individual to conform, causing this scarcity of happiness, is what this essay will examine. Civilization in essence is a means to regulate and understand such relationships. If such an attempt was not made, the relationship would be subject to the arbitrary will of the individual: that is to say the physically strong man would make decisions based upon his own interests and instinctual impulses. Instead of such barbarous systems for making decisions, a majority will often unite and over take such a monarch. To achieve high levels of civilization it is mentioned that we must organize protection from everything (nature) so that avoiding of disasters such as flooding, earthquakes, and eruptions are possible. In order to deal with flooding, man invented canals to reroute the flow as well as to make previously inadequate soil into a viable resource. To help their causes man exterminated wild beasts and replaced them with domesticated animals. Along with nature and inclusive as well beauty is another feature highly valued in all civilizations. Man witnesses beauty in nature and then replicates it to the best he is able. Civilization does not grant liberty to the individual, the development of civilization unfortunately imposes restriction on it, and thereby justice decrees that no one shall escape such restrictions. Desire for freedom is in fact a revolt against existing injustice. People desire freedom; such desires often cause strife in the civilization as a whole. The good part to civilization is that man witnesses and undertakes chances with the group as opposed to on an individual level, thus making coping that much easier. As with anything at many times the individual will have views different than that of the whole such that a problem arises and accommodation is necessary. As mentioned previously the desire to be civilized is almost in essence an instinct just like the five Freudian stages of development. Civilization to Freud is very similar to the evolution and development of the libidinal process of the individual. Sublimation or instinctual aiming is in fact the things that make it possible for higher psychical activities like scientific research, artistic development, or the origination of ideas. Civilization is thus built on a renunciation of instincts. Such ideologies are thus repressed into the unconscious say Freud, and only come out when the unconscious recognizes they are necessary. This cultural frustration often causes much hostility again which all civilizations have to struggle. Works Cited Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness: Backgrounds and Criticisms. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1960. Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and Its Discontents. Tran, McLintock, David. Penguin: London, 2002. Hayes, Dorsha. "Heart of Darkness: An Aspect of the Shadow," Spring (1956): 43-47 Milne, Fied L. "Mar low's lie and the intended: Civilization as the lie in Heart of Darkness" The Arizona Quarterly 4. Tucson: University of Arizona, 1988. Read More