Rich Tran
Mr. Rodriguez
AP Lit 5
10 January 2014
“The Heart of Darkness” and “The Hollow Men” Comparison/Contrast
The novel “The Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad and the poem “The Hollow Men” by T.S. Eliot personifies the idea of indifference. As T.S. Eliot describes his men to be “hollow”, not showing or lacking any form of interest so does the Manager from “The Heart of Darkness.” However they contrast with Kurtz, man of ambitions and dreams, who realizes that to survive in the interior of Africa he has to act like a god to these primitive people.
“He was commonplace in complexion, in features, in manners, and in voice,” the manager is seen as a common man since he lives and works a normal life; however through Marlow’s description of him we see that the manager is “uneasy” about something. (Conrad 32-33) We later learn that his uneasiness comes from his inability to pursue anything in life and that he is jealous of Kurtz because of his success. The manager has no redeemable qualities to look up to; Marlow says that he has no “genius for organization, or for order even.” (32) This makes us wonder how he even obtained the job as a manager, but we soon learn that he has always been present at his job for the past three years, and from this Marlow remarks by saying “perhaps there was nothing within in,” meaning there was no way of him ever becoming sick since he lacks the aspirations to that as well.
The beginning of “The Hollow Men” by T.S Eliot relates to Heart of Darkness” with the first line; “Mistah Kurtz – he dead,” this first line could not only symbolize the death of Kurtz, but the death of intellect, aspirations, and thought. The part following this line depicts the uncivilized or the “hollow men”. The unciviliz...
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...decisive. Opposed to the manager the hollow men have no clear vision, “there are not eyes here, and there are no eyes here,” this quote is used to describe the two sets of eyes, one being from the hollow men and the other from the heavens. The hollow men are “sightless, unless the eyes reappear as the perpetual star,” to guide them and give them meaning and purpose, of which neither the hollow men nor the station manager possess.
The manager is put into the novel to show how the adaptation to uncivilized life can be very costly, while the poem exemplifies on that idea and that these “hollow men” are missing something vital to life. However both characters express the same uncaring personality, despite the fact that they unappreciated meaning and initiative, they seem to embrace that fact that everything happens for a reason and they accept it for the way it is.
In Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad presents the character of Kurtz as a man who is seen differently by all who know him depending on their individual experiences with him. His cousin knew him as a man with great musical talent, others knew him as a great leader, and his “Intended” fiance knew him as an admirable humanitarian; but all of these knew him to be a remarkable genius. When the narrator, Marlow, first hears of him, he is told that Kurtz is known as a great leader destined to hold high positions and fame. However, as he travels the river, he also learns that Kurtz has become insane during his time in the African jungle. After Marlow finally comes into contact with him, he discovers that Kurtz has become a god among the natives and has been brutally collecting the coveted ivory. Marlow finally convinces the deathly ill man to return to the ship where he finally dies. Upon his death, Kurtz’s facial expression causes Marlow to feel as though he may be seeing his entire life passing just before it ends; and finally, he murmurs his final words “The horror! The horror!” (Conrad, p. 64).
“The Hollow Men” by T.S. Eliot is a poem of struggle for meaning amongst the meaningless. T.S. Eliot shows the reader how in this day and age society is becoming less and less active and beginning to become more careless in the way in which we live and behave, as represented throughout the poem. It brings out all of our worlds weaknesses and flaws. Eliot brings out the fact that the human race is disintegrating. We are compared to as hollow men with no emotions, cares, and nothing inside. Hollow men all look different in some way, but inside we are all the same. We shift in whatever direction we are being blown in. In The Hollow Men, by T.S. Eliot examines the absence of spiritual guidance, lack of communication between individuals, and absence of direction of outstanding and pro founding leadership.
Marlow sits in Mr. Kurtz’s fiancée’s parlor, observing the Intended as she stretches her arms across a window. The simple gesture reminds Marlow of Kurtz’s mistress in the Congo, the one “bedecked with powerless charms, stretching bare brown arms over the glitter of the infernal stream, the stream of darkness” (71). He watches the Intended as she mourns the loss of her lover and then realizes that he must lie to her to prevent shattering her heart. Throughout The Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad supports William Saroyan’s quote, “Despise evil and ungodliness, but not men of ungodliness or evil. These understand,” by illustrating the varying degree of savageness in men; he reveals the goodness in men one expects to be evil through his depiction of Africans.
2. Of all the characters in the book, the only one with somewhat of a negative connotation is the character of the general manager (of the Company (the boating company)). He is the chief agent of the Company in its African territory, who runs the Central Station. He owes his success to a robust constitution that allows him to outlive all of his competitors. He is average in appearance and unremarkable in abilities, but he possesses a strange capacity to produce uneasiness in those around him, keeping everyone sufficiently alert (against their will) for him to exert his control over them. An example of the manager producing uneasiness in others is when he learns of Kurtz’s sick condition, he actually gets happy, because now he can have more control of the group as an individual. Kurtz was the unofficial leader, and soon, the manager could “move in.”
Kurtz was not always the power hungry man portrayed in Conrad’s book. According to his Intended, Kurtz was an admired man who had a “generous heart” and a “noble mind” (Conrad, 70). However, after his expedition into Africa, he became a changed man; an “insoluble problem” (Conrad, 50). The new Kurtz “[kicks] the very earth to pieces” (Conrad, 61). “Let us say – nerves, [go] wrong, and [causes] him to preside at certain midnight dances ending with unspeakable rites” (Conrad, 45). He has dropped all sense and morality and continues to live on according to his various lusts.
The Novella Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is about an Ivory agent, Marlow, who is also the narrator of his journey up the Congo River into the heart of Africa. Marlow witnesses many new things during his journey to find Mr. Kurtz. In Apocalypse Now, the narrator is Captain Willard, who is also on a journey to find Kurtz. The Kurtz in the movie however is an American colonel who broke away from the American army and decided to hide away in Cambodia, upon seeing the reality of the Vietnam War. The poem “The Hollow Men” talks about how humans’ “hollowness” affects their lives and often leads to the destruction of one’s life. These three works all deal with similar issues, and are related to one another in many ways, and also share somewhat similar themes.
The voice of Kurtz is heard and realized not in the familiar words of others, but in the journey down the river into the unknown. People’s inability to pronounce Kurtz’s name suggests the authenticity of Kurtz’s own voice and the weakness of the words used to describe him. When describing Kurtz, familiar vocabulary fails altogether; Kurtz remains a word with little meaning. Marlow first hears of Kurtz from the Company’s chief accountant at Outer Station. When asked who Kurtz is, the accountant responds, “He is a very remarkable person” (37).* The accountant does not mention his name without adding t...
In Joseph Conrad’s short story, “Heart of Darkness,” the narrator has mixed emotions about the man Kurtz. The narrator spends a large portion of the story trying to find Kurtz. During this time the narrator builds a sense of respect and admiration for Kurtz; however when he finally finds Kurtz, he discovers that he is somewhat disgusted by Kurtz’s behavior. The narrators somewhat obsessive behavior regarding Kurtz is quickly changed into disappointment. The narrator sees that the man who Kurtz is, and the man he created Kurtz to be in his mind are two very different people. He finds that Kurtz is not a reasonable man of justice and reason, but an unstable man whose cruelty and deception is awful. In Joseph Conrad’s short story, “Heart of Darkness,”
Thus, in this novel, the characters of Marlow and Kurtz, are, at one time, shown to have been dominated by their super-ego, brought up in the British society believing in the White man’s burden. Then, both the characters journey through the African jungles, where they are confronted by horrors that they struggle to stay human and civilized. While Kurtz gives in completely to his id and becomes an inhumane barbarian, controlled by his wants and wishes; Marlow doesn’t completely give in as much as Kurtz but does remain psychologically affected from his experiences. Finally, through this intense struggle between the personalities of the characters, Conrad tries to tell us that human personality is indeed very fragile, and can be compromised without restraint.
Comparisons and contrasts are important devices which an author may use to help convey his thoughts and feelings about a situation or an event. Joseph Conrad makes use of these devices in his novel Heart of Darkness. Throughout the novel when he was trying to convey a deeper meaning about a situation or a place, he would us a comparison or contrast. The comparative and contrasting themes in the story help to develop Conrad's ideas and feelings in the Heart of Darkness. Light verses dark, the Thames verses the Congo, the Savages compared to the civilized people, and the darkness of both worlds are all contrasts and comparisons that are important to the meaning as well as the understanding of this novel.
In his novella Heart of Darkness (1899), Joseph Conrad through his principal narrator, Marlow, reflects upon the evils of the human condition as he has experienced it in Africa and Europe. Seen from the perspective of Conrad's nameless, objective persona, the evils that Marlow encountered on the expedition to the "heart of darkness," Kurtz's Inner Station on the banks of the snake-like Congo River, fall into two categories: the petty misdemeanors and trivial lies that are common- place, and the greater evils -- the grotesque acts society attributes to madmen. That the first class of malefaction is connected to the second is illustrated in the downfall of the story's secondary protagonist, the tragically deluded and hubristic Mr. Kurtz. The European idealist, believing the lies of his Company and of the economic imperialism that supports it, is unprepared for the test of character that the Congo imposes, and succumbs to the potential for the diabolical latent within every human consciousness.
In the heart of Africa lies darkness beyond that of night. Africa, still mostly undeveloped and covered in wilderness has a beast hidden within waiting to be let out. It is widely known that the primal instincts of a human are savage. In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, darkness is not just found in the pigment of one’s skin; it is found in the primal instinct of all human beings, and every human starts with a heart of darkness.
The "Heart of Darkness," written by Joseph Conrad in 1899 as a short story, is about two men who face their own identities as what they consider to be civilized Europeans and the struggle to not to abandon their themselves and their morality once they venture into the "darkness." The use of "darkness" is in the book's title and in throughout the story and takes on a number of meanings that are not easily understood until the story progresses. As you read the story you realize that the meaning of "darkness" is not something that is constant but changes depending on the context it used.
The notion of what it means to be human has been explored through various literature and interpreted in many different ways. Through an intricate series of events and circumstances as well as man's perception of superiority, Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness reveals challenging issues of imperialism and colonialism and there devastating effects on society. As the novel's title implies, the "darkness" illustrated is the negative human side of brutality and discrimination. The deeper meaning and implication of being "human" is dependent on many factors including one's surroundings affecting his or her behavior and decision-making as well as man's arrogance and feeling of superiority taking ethical actions.
To Marlow there is a different person who exudes more evil than Kurtz does. The manager is truly a monster. The manager thought that Marlow should have been hanged."You ought to be hanged"(pg.135) The manager wanted to kill Marlow, after Kurtz's death and he really didn't care much about Kurtz's death either. The only thing that the manager cared about was how to get and keep the ivory.