The Art of Darkness - Assignment Example

Total Page numbers: 13 The Art of Darkness CONTENTS: The Art of Darkness 0 INTRODUCTION Darkness is a concept we don’t even question, somethingthat becomes a part of our inner psyche before we’re even old enough to consider the source. It is more than just the simple absence of light but is instead imbued with a myriad of meanings brought to us through the medium of mythology. Mythology is often thought of as being something that was made up a very long time ago by the Greeks or the Romans and then passed on through generations to become bedtime stories for young children today. However, a literal translation of the word myth, as Northrop Frye discusses it in his essay, refers simply to a special kind of narrative.1 The special nature of this narrative is that it is devised to reflect the beliefs of a particular culture, especially as it uses the concept of the supernatural to explore and explain natural events and the essence of human nature. Frye’s argument is that this mythic narrative is included in almost all of the archetypes used in literature and that these concepts are also found within our most sacred ritual events as we continue to seek the true nature of the order of life. Considering Frye’s discussion of myth, ritual and the natural cycle as it is presented in The Archetypes of Literature, it can be seen that there are several rituals and beliefs that we experience in modern life that we are perhaps not even aware of as being a voluntary affirmation of the natural order of life, such as the beliefs we associate with the concept of darkness. An examination into the traditional values associated with darkness helps to inform the shift in focus seen as the world began to shift into its more modern configuration. 1.1 THE GOTHIC SHIFT Generally acknowledged to have started with the publication of Horace Walpole’s novel The Castle of Otranto in 1764, the Gothic genre represents a fundamental shift in thinking from one dominated by ideals and reason to one of imagination and emotion.2 Gothic literature is characterized by its unique way of combining horror and romance to create a completely new genre that, particularly after the advent of Sigmund Freud and his psychoanalytic theory,3 focused more and more on the power of the mind to terrify itself. Common elements found within Gothic literature include terror, the supernatural, ghosts, haunted houses with a particular type of architecture, castles, darkness, death, madness, secrets and hereditary curses. Characters typically fall into stereotypical personas such as the femmes fatales, flawed heroes, monsters of various types and flawed individuals. Typically, there were three characteristics that served to designate a Gothic novel. These included the concept of the sublime, the presence of darkness and the exploration of psychometry. The sublime refers to the presence of something that isn’t there, something intangible that is nevertheless felt. While used in texts prior to the Gothic development to refer to something that is beneficial and ‘Godlike’, this concept also lends itself strongly to the Gothic novel as it referred to the elements of supernatural evil. While the concept of darkness may seem to be relatively straight-forward, the following discussion will reveal several ways in which this idea can be interpreted. Finally, psychometry refers to the idea of a conflict between the body and the soul. It was an often-used technique in Gothic novels because of the obvious relationship of this to the concept of madness. It is typically in this context that Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein has been interpreted as it contains all of these elements. Frankenstein was written toward the end of the Gothic period, when the genre had already been well read, well criticized and well developed. Shelley had the advantage of half a century of plot exploration and theme development to build off of and was well read so as to have been well aware of the genre’s primary characteristics, uses, strengths and weaknesses. However, she used these elements to a much different effect. The typical approach within the gothic novel was to explore elements of the sublime and psychometry as it applied to concepts of darkness as a negative motion in that the characters were all brought to insanity and utter destruction in the end. Shelley employed these concepts to a different effect as she takes this exploration one step further to discover how a journey through darkness can bring one to the ultimate enlightenment. As she illustrates through her characters, exploration of the darkness, physical and psychological, is the means by which the individual discovers the sublime within the self. Shelley’s novel represents a shift in the shift in thinking that was taking place at this time as she delves into the metaphysical considerations of what Jung would identify as the collective unconscious or the sense of a connection to the universe.4 Instances of this motion are found as the monster, hiding in the darkness of the De Lacy woodshed, discovers his own enlightenment, gaining the use of language and greater knowledge through the ordeal and as Victor is forced to his own enlightenment regarding the value of human life and natural processes when he finds he must face the monster he created. This is a significantly different approach from traditional interpretations of the novel as well as the treatment of darkness as it is explored in novels leading into the twentieth century. In many ways, it can be said that Shelley presupposes the metaphysical investigations of the Modern age. 1.2 HISTORICAL CONTEXT Writers in the Victorian era often took a rather gloomy approach to the world, tending to view society and what was occurring within it with a pessimistic attitude, often evoking the same view of darkness taken by the majority of Gothic writers, namely, that it was a representation of evil. For example, Emily Bronte, in Wuthering Heights, originally published in 1847,5 illustrates the dark figure of Heathcliff, with his violent and passionate inner nature as a character of darkness existing in the desolate landscape of the moors. Catherine’s relationship with this darkness is seen to be her destruction as her association with him as a child encourages an unladylike wildness in her while a renewed association with him as adults introduces a deep conflict from which she cannot recover. Heathcliff is then set free to inflict his darkness upon the two families of the moors, easily destroying the Earnshaw family by providing Hindley with the means to his own ends and possibly murdering him and by refusing Hindley’s son, Hareton, the opportunities of education in the same way Hindley had deprived Heathcliff as a child. Heathcliff also manages to bring about the destruction of the Linton family following Catherine’s death, first stealing Elizabeth away as his unloved and abused wife, then stealing the younger Catherine from her father, causing Edgar Linton’s death as well. However, unlike the Gothic novels of earlier years, darkness is not permitted to prevail. Heathcliff’s own family line dies out in the sickly body of his only son Linton Heathcliff, young Catherine and Hareton are able to overcome their divergent backgrounds to find happiness at last and rumors abound that even Heathcliff and the elder Catherine have been reunited in spirit and now share their own version of heaven roaming the moors. Emily’s sister, Charlotte Bronte, also investigated elements of darkness in her novels, acknowledging it as a force of negativity and trouble, but encouraging some form of confrontation with it as a means of bringing about an acceptably happy resolution. In perhaps her most well-known novel, Jane Eyre,6 Bronte presents another dark figure in the form of Edward Rochester. He is brooding and silent, brusque and rough, mysterious and formidable. In this and in his officious manner regarding Jane, even after he has admitted he has fallen in love with her, serves to highlight the great disparity between the two characters in terms of their social standing, illuminating another dark area of social life for women. As Jane’s wedding day arrives, she finally learns the secret behind the woman she found in the attic, that she is Edward’s first wife revealing Edward to be an even greater dark figure than first imagined. He is not only willing to participate in a despicable evil act by marrying a second wife while still married to the first, but is willing to severely damage Jane’s reputation and social standing, already weak, through this same deception. Other dark figures emerge in the form of Mr. Brocklehurst, the greedy clergyman and headmaster of Lowood School who would rather see his students suffer and die than allow his own family to live on a budget or to find a compassionate means of teaching the students entrusted to his care, and, unusually, in the female character of Mrs. Reed, Jane’s aunt. Mr. Brocklehurst represents a great number of dark evils present in Victorian society at the time that Charlotte wrote her novel. Schools such as the one featured in her book were available for children in England and frequently served to destroy the individual either through death or mind-numbing instruction and discipline. Mrs. Reed highlights the concept that a person can be dark on the inside without appearing as such on the outside. Throughout his work, Charles Dickens also expressed a continuing concern with the darkness that existed within the heart of society as it continued to ignore the plight of the oppressed and the poor. His novels can be seen to increasingly address the social concerns of the day. While his earlier work, particularly Pickwick Papers shies away from delving far into these issues to some degree, as early as the 1838 publication of Oliver Twist,7 Dickens begins to address those social issues that failed to take advantage of children’s natural talents and abilities, instead allowing them to become homeless beggars and thieves on the streets of London. Dark characters lurk in the shadows of London streets, ready to terrorize small children into committing evil acts upon innocent victims for personal gain. In Nicholas Nickleby,8 he begins to address more intensely social issues such as regulating the educational system, making education available to more children and the effects of poverty on children, suggesting the solution to the outer darkness seen in Oliver Twist was the provision of adequate and appropriate education, or the removal of the inner darkness resulting from a lack of education. In The Old Curiosity Shop9 the death of Little Nell was an attack upon the evils of poverty and a lack of necessary social and community services. While his main characters are typically able to experience a relatively content future existence by the end of the book’s timeframe, they are all negatively affected by their brush with darkness and none have managed to attain the type of spiritual enlightenment experienced at some point in the characters of Shelley’s novel. These issues were not unique to literary prose, but could be found in the poetry of the time as well. Thomas Hardy is sometimes referred to as having a ‘simple’ approach to poetry based upon the subjects and perspectives that he presented within his work. Titles such as ‘The Ivy-Wife’, ‘To Flowers from Italy in Winter’ and ‘The Workbox’10 don’t do much to inspire confidence in the weightiness of their message or relationship to items of worth. However, each of these poems carries a much greater depth than the name might imply while still contemplating little more than the concept of the title itself. In ‘The Ivy Wife’, Hardy discusses the nature of the ivy vine as it reaches for a host to grow upon. Although he never strays from the topic of the ivy as it reaches for first one, then another possible host with varying degrees of success, he weaves an analogy to the human wife who chokes her husband in her ambition and forgets from where she gains her support. In ‘To Flowers from Italy in Winter’, he presents a bleak image of hopelessness for mankind’s lasting effect. ‘The Workbox’ seems a whimsical poem relating the discussion between a man and his wife, but is actually a fully developed short story complete with foreshadowing, characterization, drama and horror: ‘Yet still her lips were limp and wan, / Her face still held aside, / As if she had known not only John, / But known of what he died.’11 Thus, images of darkness as they appear within the poems of Hardy also can be seen to contain a very negative connotation through which nothing positive can emerge. This brief overview of the more popular and influential writers of the Victorian era leading into the twentieth century reveals that while the concept of darkness remained an important element of literary movements immediately following Shelley and the end of the Gothic era’s popularity, no one had yet managed to understand her foundational ideas of facing darkness as a means of finding enlightenment. However, throughout this period, science and philosophy continued to develop new concepts regarding the nature of the mind, the process of the development of the self, the human being’s relationship to God and nature and new concepts regarding the interconnectedness of the mind between reason and order and imagination and emotion. These ideas again opened up the discussion regarding the true nature of darkness and its relative evilness. These are ideas that were explored in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.12 1.4 ANOTHER SHIFT IN THINKING With the approach of the new century, there was another fundamental shift in literary thought as authors began investigating more of what science had discovered regarding psychology and human thought. Metaphysics was beginning to gain some acknowledgement and there was a great deal of questioning into the assumptions society had made to this point. For example, throughout Joseph Conrad’s story Heart of Darkness,13 the main character Marlow continuously calls into question the modern assumptions that are made by his listeners as well as his readers, blurring the lines between inward and outward, civilized and savage and, most especially, dark and light. The bulk of the book concentrates on Marlowe’s telling of his adventures on the Congo River as a steamboat captain sent in to find a station master who has gone missing. As he struggles to make his way up the river to the interior where this man is supposed to be waiting for him, Marlowe begins to gain a deeper understanding of what is actually occurring in the forest outside the realm of what he’s been told by the Company. It is explained from the beginning of the book that Marlowe is different from most men in that he does not search for a great depth of meaning on the inside, as had been the tradition in everything from art analysis to psychology, but rather that he seeks meaning from the outside of things, by what can be seen and touched about a man and therefore proved to no false assumptions. However, what he sees in the Congo makes gaining meaning from the story difficult at best as nothing seems to be established in such dyadic certainty, a fact that is underscored as the story begins. This structural uncertainty deliberately forces the reader onto unstable ground in which they must find a balance somewhere between their previous ideas and the new ideas brought forward through Marlowe’s discoveries in the jungle. Marlowe discovers that what he thought was dark – the jungle, the people, the culture – is somehow not so dark as compared to what he had previously considered light – the European culture, ‘civilized’ lands or white people. Again, the pattern of the character being required to enter into the darkness in order to discover a sense of fundamental truth and connection to the universe is seen within each of the main characters. Marlowe must travel to the deepest, darkest part of the known world in order to discover his fundamental truth, one that forever alters his view of the world in a way that enables him to connect with it at a far deeper level. Kurtz, too, finds a fundamental truth in life just before he dies as a result of his explorations into the darkness not only of the jungle, but of his own soul. 1.5 A NEW VIEW OF DARKNESS Thus, Conrad is connected to Shelley in their shared yet unique viewpoint that it is only by confronting the darkness that one can discover true enlightenment. Through the works of Shelley and Conrad, a new view of the concept of darkness begins to emerge in which it is not necessarily evil, but instead serves as a means of attaining the sublime experience essential to a true connection to the universe. Both of these authors try to redefine the traditional Western concept of darkness as a force of evil and negative energy. In our fairytales and legends, it is always the dark man or the darkness that hides what we cannot fathom and fear to face. As had been shown in the Gothic novels of the past as well as the Victorian novels following Shelley and leading up to Conrad, darkness consistently represents everything evil leaving a powerfully negative effect upon its characters. The absence of light is seen as a literal absence of the Light of God and therefore must be the dwelling place of all evil. To turn to the darkness is to turn one’s back on goodness and honor and to embrace the devil and his mischievous ways. Yet both Shelley and Conrad work to demonstrate that it is only when we face this darkness and seek to discover what it has to hide that we can finally attain true enlightenment. Shelley does this by illustrating that only when her main character, Dr. Victor Frankenstein, confronts the darkness in his own soul is he finally able to understand the nature of the monster he’s created. Conrad takes his readers on a mysterious journey up the Congo into the deepest, darkest parts of the newly colonized jungles of Africa searching for a man who seems as ephemeral as mist. Here, too, it is in the confrontation of darkness that true light is applied. This paradoxical understanding of the concept of darkness will be explored through an examination of the literature regarding traditional understandings of darkness and applying them to Shelley’s Frankenstein and Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. 2.0 TRADITIONAL VIEWS OF DARKNESS 3.0 MARY SHELLEY’S FRANKENSTEIN 4.0 JOSEPH CONRAD’S HEART OF DARKNESS 5.0 PERSPECTIVES ON THE NATURE OF DARKNESS 6.0 CONCLUSIONS BIBLIOGRAPHY Books Bronte, Charlotte, Jane Eyre, (New York: Penguin Classics, 2003). Bronte, Emily, Wuthering Heights, (New York: Bantam Classics, 1983). Freud, Sigmund, On the History of the Psychoanalytic Movement (Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud), (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1966). Frye, N., The Archetypes of Literature in ed. Vincent B. Leitch, The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, (New York: Norton, 2001). Hardy, Thomas, The Complete Poems. (London: Macmillan, 1976). Jung, Carl, The Portable Jung, ed. Joseph Campbell, trans. R.F.C. Hull, (New York: Penguin Books, 1976). Page, Steve, The Shadow and the Counsellor: Working with Darker Aspects of the Person, Role and Profession, (London: Routledge, 1999). Said, Edward, Orientalism, (New York: Vintage Books, 1979). Sardar, Ziauddin, Orientalism, (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1999). Periodicals Calame, C., ‘Mythe et ‘rite’ en Grèce: Des catégories indigènes?’ Kernos. (1991), pp. 179-204. Reviewed by Lowell Edmunds, Rutgers University Hume, Robert D., ‘Gothic versus Romantic: A Revaluation of the Gothic Novel”, PMLA, vol. 8, n. 2, (March 1969), p. 282. Electronic Sources Bixler-Thomas, Gail, Understanding Dreams. On Dreaming. (November 1998) [accessed 18 March 2008] Boeree, C. George in Surrealism: The Art of Self Discovery. [accessed 18 March 2008] Jung’s Archetypes. Changing Minds, (2002) [accessed 18 March 2008]. The Oriental View of Health, (Toronto: Shiatsu School of Canada, 1996) [accessed 18 March 2008] Xia, Chen, ‘Daoism and Environment Protection’, (Sichuan University: Institute of Religious Studies, 2003) [accessed 18 March 2008]. Read More