Role of Science and Technology in Lunar Men and Heart of Darkness - Essay Example

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY IN LUNAR MEN & HEART OF DARKNESS Science and technology play a very important role in the novels Lunar Men and Heart of Darkness. Both are novels of adventure and exploration. While it might be possible to explore the city you live in or your neighborhood, if you want to really see the world or the universe you are going to need technology of some sort to get you there. That is one aspect of the role of science and technology in these novels. Another important aspect is how both of these things give people knowledge of their world. In Lunar Men, the five friends, due to their unbelievable genius and ability to make new things, gain a deep understanding of the world both philosophically and physically—their inventions too are used to allow other people to more profoundly understand the physical world. In Heart of Darkness, it is the West’s ability to harness technology that makes the minerals and rubber of the Congo valuable and that makes it important to extract such products. But the novel also shows the limits to human’s knowledge—even using technology and science humans cannot know everything. When they think the do, trouble occurs. These aspects of the roles of science and technology will be looked at in this essay. One of the main points of the book Lunar Men is the sheer joy of the intellectual curiosity Uglow’s heroes possess and show. They want to find out about the world, they want to learn new things. It is this sense of adventure and exploration that drives them, even though they don’t really leave their hometown—they just meet in person. The adventure is what they learn about the world through their scientific experiments and from sharing information and curiosity with one another. It isn’t a physical journey across the world. Indeed, they don’t need to take such a journey because they can bring the world to themselves through their experiments and discoveries. Boulton, for example, when he is starting out feels an air of energy surrounding him and feels the time is ripe for “adventure,” but he doesn’t get on a merchant ship. Instead: “Armed with the security of Anne’s money and his own inheritance from his father, Boulton made plans. The workshop and warehouse on Snow Hill were too small and he dreamed of a site big enough to have stores of raw materials, drawing and design rooms, workshops for all stages and products, and a warehouse for finished goods. He also wanted a mill to drive machines . . .” (65) The latest technologies let him stay at home. For other men, like Robinson, for example, worldly adventures have led them back to the laboratory, which they seem to prefer. Robinson, Uglow writes, had accompanied James Wolfe “on that the fatal night he scaled the heights” at Quebec City (99). He had seen his fair share of action and adventure, but what really captured his attention was learning about the natural world. Elsewhere, Uglow writes, “The adventures of the individual members of the Lunar group ran between their joint work, like solos or duets in a long choral work, and one long duet was the battle between Boulton and Watt to hold onto the lead in the field of steam” (362-3). Science and technology is what excites them; it is what brings them together and makes their friendships both enjoyable and competitive. The world is there inside their labs and workshops and the meeting of minds. It often seems like there is no limit to what they can know. That portrayal of science and technology is very different than that of Heart of Darkness. Certainly, the main character Marlow has the same level of curiosity as the scientists in Lunar Men: “[W]hen I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all the glories of exploration. At that time there were many blank spaces on the earth, and when I saw one that looked particularly inviting on a map (but they all look that) I would put my finger on it and say, ‘When I grow up I will go there’” (11). At the time, however, the technology did exist. There were no trade routes—there were no reasons to go to these places—plus there was none of the remedies for tropical illnesses that later lead to these blank spaces on the map being opened up. But with science and technology these physical limits began to disappear. For Marlow, science and technology opens up the physical world rather than the intellectual world to exploration. It allows him to go to the Congo and up the river to try to find Kurtz. But unlike in the Lunar Men where the limits of what humans can know seems virtually limitless, in Heart of Darkness there are strict limits beyond which the human mind cannot or should not pass. That is in part what Kurtz means when he says, famously, “The Horror! The Horror!” (96). This concept of the limits of knowledge are also terrifyingly illustrated when Marlow first arrives in Africa and sees the coast, “almost featureless, as if still in the making, with an aspect of monotonous grimness. The edge of a colossal jungle, so dark-green a to be almost black, fringed with white surf, ran straight, like a ruled line, far, far away along a blue sea whose glitter was blurred by a creeping mist” (17). There is little that can be comprehended of this world. The only tools the Western world uses to try to understand it in many ways come about as a result of the various inventions of the Lunar men. Marlow one day sees a man-of-war anchored off the coast shooting into the jungle for no apparent reason. “Pop, would go one of the six-inch guns; a small flame would dart and vanish, a little white smoke would disappear, a tiny projectile would give a feeble screech—and nothing happened. Nothing could happen” (18). This type of technology, technology without curiosity can accomplish nothing. Both Lunar Men and Heart of Darkness show the importance of technology and science to humans. But the portrayal is different. In Lunar Men technology can almost do anything and one need not leave home to explore the universe of ideas. In Heart of Darkness, technology opens up the physical world but its excessive pursuit leads nowhere. Bibliography Joseph Conrad. Heart of Darkness. New York: Filiquarian, 2007. Jenny Uglow. The Lunar Men. London: F,S,G, 2003. Read More