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rottenjester 's review for:
Heart of Darkness
by Joseph Conrad
"We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there- there you could look at a thing monstrous and free. It was unearthly, and the men were- no, they were not inhuman."
Heart of Darkness explores the omnipresent force of nature in man and his struggle to reason with his body upon which mortality has been inscribed against his will. It is the "great spirit of the past" which nature takes from the individual after he has borne it in life and embodied it in death. To sacrifice all to that which has birthed us- man and nature are involved in a constant struggle for power. We cannot conquer that which we depend on which is why man chooses to conquer himself instead.
He convinces himself that those of a different complexion are animals and therefore closer to nature which seeks to destroy him. We fear that which we cannot explain (death, nature, humanity) so instead of exposing ourselves to curiosity we shackle the unfamiliar so it may not grow beyond our control. Man, who fails to control death, inflicts it upon others to disguise himself as immortal.
Nature which is considered primal is undermined by reason which is defined as rational. Yet reason bares its teeth when trained by the ignorant: it is reason which enslaves, reason which kills, reason which divides. Ideology becomes truth when exploiting the fear of the desperate masses. Reason makes an animal out of man just as nature does- except we use our natural instincts to preserve ourselves and reason to diminish others. Reason is employed to bargain where nature refuses to bend.
We soothe ourselves with violence to grow accustomed to death, condemning others to distract ourselves from our mortality. Yet we all die the same. When man sees no reason in nature he makes his own so as not to succumb to despair.
Not sure how much this actually applies to the narrative at hand- I forgot all about the plot and was working mainly with the lines I marked. Something about how we use an idealized past to justify destroying what is foreign to us, calling non-whites 'savages' to disguise our own savagery. Conrad's language is very powerful and really added to the eerie atmosphere of the novel. Lots to think about for such a short book, will probably reread in the future.
Heart of Darkness explores the omnipresent force of nature in man and his struggle to reason with his body upon which mortality has been inscribed against his will. It is the "great spirit of the past" which nature takes from the individual after he has borne it in life and embodied it in death. To sacrifice all to that which has birthed us- man and nature are involved in a constant struggle for power. We cannot conquer that which we depend on which is why man chooses to conquer himself instead.
He convinces himself that those of a different complexion are animals and therefore closer to nature which seeks to destroy him. We fear that which we cannot explain (death, nature, humanity) so instead of exposing ourselves to curiosity we shackle the unfamiliar so it may not grow beyond our control. Man, who fails to control death, inflicts it upon others to disguise himself as immortal.
Nature which is considered primal is undermined by reason which is defined as rational. Yet reason bares its teeth when trained by the ignorant: it is reason which enslaves, reason which kills, reason which divides. Ideology becomes truth when exploiting the fear of the desperate masses. Reason makes an animal out of man just as nature does- except we use our natural instincts to preserve ourselves and reason to diminish others. Reason is employed to bargain where nature refuses to bend.
We soothe ourselves with violence to grow accustomed to death, condemning others to distract ourselves from our mortality. Yet we all die the same. When man sees no reason in nature he makes his own so as not to succumb to despair.
Not sure how much this actually applies to the narrative at hand- I forgot all about the plot and was working mainly with the lines I marked. Something about how we use an idealized past to justify destroying what is foreign to us, calling non-whites 'savages' to disguise our own savagery. Conrad's language is very powerful and really added to the eerie atmosphere of the novel. Lots to think about for such a short book, will probably reread in the future.