Altered Reality in Heart of Darkness
The world of darkness that Marlow finds himself in is directly comparable to what Leary describes of the bardos (stages) that occur during a drug-induced trip or psychedelic experience. ‘The underlying problem of the Second Bardo is that any and every shape—human, divine, diabolical, heroic, evil, animal, thing—which the human brain conjures up or the past life recalls, can present itself to consciousness: shapes and forms and sounds whirling by endlessly’ (48). An example of such presentation is Marlow’s perception of the jungle as a palpable force that has the power of human gestures. It calls, beckons, lures, etc. Leary writes that accompanying the moment of ego-loss is the perception of ‘wave-energy flow’: ‘the individual becomes aware that he is part of and surrounded by a charged field of energy, which seems almost electrical...the attempt to control or to rationalize this energy flow... is indicative of ego-activity and the First Bardo transcendence is lost’ (41). Marlow never loses ego-activity so he never reaches transcendence, but his ego-activity rationalizes his feeling of the physical awareness of the jungle. He colors the Congo dark instead of light and chooses to reject, not embrace, the force of the jungle so his rationalizations are negative and he thinks the force is evil.
The negative, wrathful counterparts to this vision occur if the voyager reacts with fear to the powerful flow of life forms. Such a reaction is attributable to the cumulated result of game playing (karma) dominated by anger or stupidity. A nightmarish hell-world may ensue. The visual forms appear like a confusing chaos of cheap, ugly dime-store objects, brassy, vulgar and useless. The ...
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... all truth, and all sincerity, are just compressed into that inappreciable moment of time in which we step over the threshold of the invisible’ (Conrad, 113).
Works Cited
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Editor Robert Kimbrough. New York: Norton, 1988.
Cox, C. B. Conrad: Heart of Darkness, Nostromo, and Under Western Eyes. London: Macmillan Education Ltd., 1987.
Guetti, James. ‘Heart of Darkness and the Failure of the Imagination’, Sewanee Review LXXIII, No. 3 (Summer 1965), pp. 488-502. Ed. C. B. Cox.
Leary, Timothy , Metzner, Ralph, Alpert, Richard The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead
Ruthven, K. K. ‘The Savage God: Conrad and Lawrence,’ Critical Quarterly, x, nos 1& 2 (Spring and Summer 1968), pp. 41-6. Ed. C. B. Cox.
Watts, Cedric. A Preface to Conrad. Essex: Longman Group UK Limited, 1993.
Watts, Cedric. 'Heart of Darkness.' The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad. Ed. J.H. Stape. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. 45-62.
...o, while the novella’s archetypal structure glorifies Marlow’s domination of Kurtz. These two analyses taken together provide a much fuller and more comprehensive interpretation of the work. Conrad presents the idea that there is some darkness within each person. The darkness is is inherited and instinctual, but because it is natural does not make it right. He celebrates – and thereby almost advises – the turn from instinct. By telling Marlow’s tale, Joseph Conrad stresses to his audience the importance of self-knowledge and the unnecessity of instinct in civilization.
In his second imperative he stated that we have to “always treat rational beings as an end and never as a means only” (Vaughn, p.114). Of course they’re true, in this situation we would be using the child as means to an end. Since we’re torturing him to locate the terrorist. However I can also argue that this is where Kant’s theory is too absolute. In this situation would you save millions of lives by torturing one child or be the reason why millions and many more had to die because you couldn’t torture one
Wright, Walter F. Romance and Tragedy in Joseph Conrad. New York: Russell & Russell, 1966.
Healthcare is considered of one of the most complex business models in the American Industry because it is one of the only industries where the consumer actually does not technically pay for the service he or she receives (Kudyba, 2010, p. 2). When consumers go to nail salons or hair salons, he or she pays the beautician for the specific service he or she asks for. In the healthcare industry it is totally different and most consumers do not understand the complexity of this business model. The consumer actually pays insurance companies and the insurance companies pay the provider/hospital based on negotiation arrangements from the data exchanges they receive (Kudyba, 2010, p. 2).
Throughout its entirety, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness utilizes many contrasts and paradoxes in an attempt to teach readers about the complexities of both human nature and the world. Some are more easily distinguishable, such as the comparison between civilized and uncivilized people, and some are more difficult to identify, like the usage of vagueness and clarity to contrast each other. One of the most prominent inversions contradicts the typical views of light and dark. While typically light is imagined to expose the truth and darkness to conceal it, Conrad creates a paradox in which darkness displays the truth and light blinds us from it.
Conrad, Joseph. "Heart of Darkness." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams et al. 6th ed. vol. 2. New York: Norton, 1993. 1759-1817.
There is no one fool proof method of preventing sexual activity in teenager or adolescents –the current strategies are now geared towards reducing the number of STD cases and encourage safe sex among teenagers. However, it is also important to remember that health resources have a limit and one simply cannot go on providing condoms ad lib, if they are not going to be used. One has to accept the fact there there will always be a certain population that will remain noncompliant with behavior strategies or use of condoms. The name of the game is not to have zero sexual activity or no STDs among teenagers, but just safe sex with the least number of infections.
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness and Other Tales. Ed. Cedric Watts. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness 3rd Ed. Ed. Robert Kimbrough. New York: Norton Critical, 1988.
* Conrad, Joseph. “Heart of Darkness” in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, M.H. Abrams, general editor. (London: W.W. Norton, 1962, 2000)
As the hypothesis I discussed, this article is dedicated to explore if there is any correlation between poverty and people’s support for terrorism within a country. Before I start, there are many things about poverty we have to clarify. Poverty theoretically means general scarcity, dearth, or the state of one who lacks a certain amount of material possessions or money. But it is also a terminology that contains many different meanings and indications. To understand, we have to separate relative poverty and absolute poverty. When people say poverty cause terrorism, it possibly means the condition in which lack the minimum income required to maintain the most basic
Williams, Laurence O. An End to Global Warming. Ohio: Pergamno, 2012. Web 13 May 2015
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness 3rd ed. Ed. Robert Kimbrough. New York: Norton Critical, 1988.