Susanna Ogorkowska
Davidson, 3rd
May 25th, 2016
In the Depths of an Insane Mind, Fantasy and Reality are the Same
In Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, light and darkness are prevalent motifs that serve to reveal the inner struggles within main characters Marlow and Blanche. Marlow is the narrator of Heart of Darkness who acts as a spectator who deems skeptical of the ivory trade going on along the congo. Blanche is a lost and secretive woman with a bad past that she hopes to keep hidden. He and she both significantly struggle with understanding the lines between fantasy and reality. They grapple with this because they use fantasy in order to block out the harsh realities that they do not
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She steers clear of the light and hangs back in the shadows, in the dark.When Blanche is able to live in the darkness, she is unexposed and able to hide the things about her that would not be socially acceptable. Blanche “like[s] it dark. The dark is comforting to [her]” because she knows when she is in the dark she can continue to give off this perfect facade of being young and wanted (Williams 43). It enables her to live a socially acceptable life with no desires and no unsavory behavior. She has always wanted to be desired by men. Her age, to her, is what prohibits men from wanting her, so she hides in the darkness. Mitch is a man that she hopes she can connect with. But one night, when the couple is together, Mitch becomes suspicious of her sneaky behavior. He becomes sceptical of her pasts and asks for her to go out into the light. She says that she will not. So in anger, Mitch rips off the paper lantern that was placed on the lightbulb and exposes her for who she really is. She is revealed and Blanche is torn apart because she her ideal world is now torn apart. In disbelief, Blanche tells Mitch that she doesn’t “want realism, [she] want[s] magic!” (144). She is absolutely trembling with the idea that of having to face reality. Blanche would much rather stay in her magical fantasy world than the one where the her flaws are revealed. Mitch …show more content…
He is talking about the native people and the slaves and comparing them to black shadows. But here, he is not referring to the slaves as negative, he is referring to the evil that is taking place. The European men are taking their homes, taking their culture and treating them like puppets. The Africans are being worked to death and conquered by the Europeans who just invaded their home. The light is gone and the barrier is down and this allows the readers finally see the truth -the evil that lies within. The exemplary idea of imperialism and colonizations is no longer perfect. The darkness reveals the truth. It is hidden. Kurtz has lived in the jungle and experienced all it has to offer. He has lived in the dark. But the darkness has made him mad. He becomes sick. His sickness reflects the sickness in his mind and within his soul. Marlow finally sees that Kurtz is empty. The wilderness has taken all of the humanity out of him. This downfall leads Marlow to learn that at the heart of everything there lies only darkness. Kurtz lies on his deathbed, the light is “within a foot of his eyes,” he sits “in the dark waiting for death.” (65). The light is close to him, but instead of looking out, he forces himself to look at the darkness within himself. He can’t tolerate the lies and light anymore so he accepts himself.. This shows
However Blanche is unable to get attention or protection throughout the story be cause of all the lies she's told. She also ends up hurting the people who are closest to her when she tries to hide who she really is. For example when she says " I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes magic!
This can be symbolized by light. Blanche hates to be seen by Mitch, her significant other, in the light because it exposes her true identity. Instead, she only plans to meet him at night or in dark places. Also, she covers the lone light in Stella and Stanley’s apartment with a Chinese paper lantern. After Blanche and Mitch get into a fight, Mitch rips off the lantern to see what Blanche really looks like. Blanche angrily replies that she’s sorry for wanting magic. In the play, Blanche states “I don’t want realism, I want magic! [..] Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don’t tell the truth, I tell what ought to be truth. And if that is sinful, then let me be damned for it!”(Williams 117). Blanche wants to escape reality, but this only leads to her self-destruction. It is the men in her life and past experiences that is the main cause of her self - destruction. One of these being the death of her young love, Allen Grey. During their marriage, Blanche, attached to the hip to this man, walked in on him with another man. She then brought the incident up at a bad time; soon after, Allen took his own life, which I believe was the first step to this so called “self-destruction. Blanche could never forgive herself of this. This is the truth of her past, therefore,
The moment their eyes first meet, there seems to be an immediate attraction between Blanche and Mitch, causing them to take a “certain interest” in one another. After their first close encounter while the poker game is taking place, Blanche notices that Mitch is not like Stanley and the others. Telling Stella, “That one seems—superior to the others…I thought he had a sort of sensitive look” (Williams 52), Blanche takes interest in Mitch’s perceived sensitivity, and is immediately attracted
Blanche could not accept her past and overcome it. She was passionately in love with Alan; but after discovering that he was gay, she could not stomach the news. When she revealed how disgusted she was, it prompted Alan to commit suicide. She could never quite overcome the guilt and put it behind her. Blanche often encountered flashbacks about him. She could hear the gun shot and polka music in her head. After Alan’s death, she was plagued by the deaths of her relatives. Stella moved away and did not have to deal with the agony Blanche faced each day. Blanche was the one who stuck it out with her family at Belle Reve where she had to watch as each of her remaining family members passed away. “I took the blows in my face and my body! All of those deaths! The long parade to the graveyard! Father, Mother! Margaret, that dreadful way! You just came home in time for the funerals, Stella. And funerals are pretty compared to deaths. Funerals are quiet, but deaths—not always” (Scene 1, page 1546). Blanche lost Belle Reve because of all the funeral expenses. Belle Reve had been in her family for generations, and it slipped through her fingers while she watched helplessly. Blanche’s anguish caused her loneliness. The loneliness fueled her abundance of sexual encounters. Her rendezvous just added to her problems and dirtied her rep...
The epiphany of Marlow in "The Heart of Darkness" has significance in the overall story. The theme of the story is how every man has inside himself a heart of darkness and that a person, being alienated like Kurtz, will become more savage. Marlow, in his epiphany, realizes the savagery of man and how being alienated from modern civilization causes one to be savage and raw. This savagery is shown especially in the death of the helmsman, which is where Marlow's epiphany takes place, but the savagery is also show in Kurtz. The link that Kurtz has to the natives and the death of the helmsman is that the natives work for Kurtz.
Blanche also becomes disconnected from reality because of her delusions of music and gunshots from her husband’s death. She seeks relationships with strangers in the hopes of recreating the love she had for her husband. When the relationship fails to satisfy her craving for love, she sinks further into her fantasy. When Mitch rejects her, saying “I don 't think I want to marry you anymore.” (Williams 131) she once again finds comfort in her fantasy. She has sunk so far into her fantasy that she has a response to all of Stanley’s questions. She is no longer up holding the illusion for others. She truly believes her delusions enough to maintain the façade while she is
Kurtz once was considered an honorable man, but living in the Congo separated from his own culture he changed greatly. In the jungle he discovers his evil side, secluded from the rest of his own society he becomes corrupted by power. "My Ivory. My people, my ivory, my station, my river," everything was under Kurtz's reign. While at Kurtz's camp Marlow encounters the broken roof on Kurtz's house, the "black hole," this is a sign of the uncivilized. The black hole represents the unknown and unconquered, and therefore represents the uncivilized. Also, Marlow notices the "black heads" on Kurt...
Thus, Williams has Blanche state, “I don’t want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don’t tell the truth, I tell what ought to be truth. And if that is sinful, then let me be damned for it! – Don’t turn the light on” (Williams 145). Blanche only relies on her own fantasy because she fears reality. By the same token, a subtle clue to her fear of reality is her fear of the light. As can be seen, Blanche feared reality because she feared the truth; thus, her fantasies had led her down a path of lies, manipulation, and
When Marlow finally reaches Kurtz he is in declining health. This same jungle which he loved, embraced and consumed with every ounce of his flesh had also taken its toll on him. Marlow finally meets the man whose name has haunted him on his river journey. Could this frail human be the ever so powerful Kurtz? The man who has journeyed into uncharted territories and has come back with scores of ivory and the respect of the native tribe. Yes, this was the very man and though he is weak and on his way to death his power still exudes from him.
Many of which he has never seen before. One trait that is new to Marlow is “craven terror”. Kurtz is portrayed in most of the book as a confident larger than life character. In his final moments however he is basically describes as scared and as a coward. Marlow sees that Kurtz too is human and is afraid of death.
Multiple times throughout this novella, Marlow confirms these beliefs. After Kurtz's death, Marlow believes he has to fulfill some prophecy. Rather than bury himself in self-loathing, he decides to live out the “nightmare because it is his “destiny. [His] destiny! Froll thing life is - that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose” (154).
...s to look at Kurtz as a hero for all that he had accomplished, no matter how evil. Marlow?s obstacles as the hero are not the overcoming of a dragon or evil villain. It is the eternal battle of the story of a Hero versus Antihero. Marlow?s blindness to Kurtz?s impurities are both his strength and weakness. His ignorance to the greatness of his own qualities can best be stated one way: ?The Horror.?
In the novel, Heart of Darkness, written by Joseph Conrad, Marlow lies to Kurtz’s fiancée at the end of the story when she asks him to repeat his last words to which he responds that his last word was her name. Kurtz’s fiancée, also referred to as the Intended, was comforted by his response and wept in triumph; however, she believed in an illusion because she never knew what Kurtz became in Africa. The author uses character analysis, language, and dark imagery to convey Marlow’s pity for a single glint of light in the Intended’s house of sorrow by lying to her about Kurtz’s last words before passing away.
...il of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision,-he cried out twice, a cry that was no more that a breath- 'The horror! The horror!' "(Longman, 2000, p. 2240). This is what distinguishes the two men; Kurtz abandoned himself and went over the edge, but Marlow is aware of just how close he was to becoming what Kurtz was.
This sight angers Marlow, and when he gets to Kurtz, it’s too late. Even he has been pulled in by the darkness. Conrad makes an effective distinction between Marlow and Kurtz.