Unfathomable Darkness And The Ability Of Mankind example essay topic

Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men" contain coinciding themes and ideals. The darkness controlling thoughts and actions of the people in the Congo parallels the shadow of fear and inevitable death that hangs over the soldiers at war. Both works include incapacity to understand the forces controlling both philanthropist and soldiers alike. The two works also investigate the culminating results of being encased in darkness and how this darkness can change one's reality, the way one lives one's life. These two great works explore the effects of darkness of the mind, unfathomable darkness, and the ability of mankind to be corrupted by the darkness in the human psyche.

One example of a similar theme within both works is the darkness of the mind. This is apparent at the end of Heart of Darkness, when Kurtz goes insane because he finally realizes and comes to terms with his own heart of darkness. Marlow states that "evidently the appetite for more ivory had got the better of the... less material aspirations" (52). This darkness of the mind stems from a drastic change in one's environment. Kurtz experiences his moral degradation when he is out of his normal environment. He goes to the jungle to find riches but in the end discovers "the horror" of his corrupt soul (64).

The reality of man's greediness for materialistic things is something Marlow realizes only after going to the Congo, leaving all his worldly things behind, and observing Kurtz. Marlow speaks of this observation when he states "The thing was to know what he belonged to, how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own" (44). Marlow describes this darkness that took over Kurtz's whole mind and body as "an impenetrable darkness" (63). It had even corrupted his business practices. The manager says that "Mr. Kurtz's methods had ruined the district" (53). Marlow comes to the realization of this darkness of the mind in this epiphany: "I looked around, and I don't know why, but I assure you that never, never before, did this land, this river, this jungle, the very arch of this blazing sky, appear to me so hopeless and so dark, so impenetrable to human thought, so pitiless to human weakness" (51).

In "The Hollow Men", the darkness of the mind is the darkness in the reality that as soldiers "In this last of meeting places", each one must learn to accept imminent death. This harsh reality of death controls the soldiers. Eliot expresses how the soldiers cope with this certainty of death by "We grope together / And avoid speech" (lines 57-59). The unfathomable darkness in both works comes from the inability of man to understand the dark forces that control them. In "The Hollow Men" the soldiers wear "Such deliberate disguise" because they are afraid of their irrevocable fate. In the Heart of Darkness, the unfathomable darkness is the mysterious force that drives men to act out of normalcy.

This dark force changes Kurtz from a philanthropist to a greed driven exploiter and causes him to lack "restraint in the gratification of his various lusts" (53). The Russian trader cannot comprehend the reasons why Kurtz would "disappear for weeks" in search of more ivory. The Russian thinks that Kurtz is "mad" because he " [forgets] himself amongst [the] people" (52). The soldiers' incapacity to understand their inevitable fate corresponds to the unfathomable darkness that changes people in the Congo.

A theme common in both of these works is the ability of mankind to be corrupted. This corruptness is the result of the dark forces that hang over the soldiers and the people in the Congo. The true nature of man is revealed by the brutality of war in "The Hollow Men" and the corruptness of the inhabitants of the Congo in Heart of Darkness. The soldiers come to terms with the mental despair that death places on an individual after experiencing the tragedy of death in war. Subsequent to war, "Falls the shadow" (87) and the soldiers accept this harsh reality by saying "This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper" (102-103) which closely compares to Kurtz's last words "The horror!

The horror!" (64). The truth of the corruptness of the Congo is evident in the beginning when Marlow sees the Congo as a "blank space" when in reality it has been corrupted by the greed of ivory hunters (5). Kurtz's ruthlessness from his passion for ivory consumes him with "an intense and hopeless despair" (64). Marlow states that Kurtz, like the Hollow Men, was "hollow at the core" (53) because his desires for the materialistic things of the world had "got into his veins, consumed his flesh, and sealed his soul to its own by the inconceivable ceremonies of some devilish initiation" (44). "The Hollow Men" and the Heart of Darkness contain common themes of the darkness of the mind, unfathomable darkness, and the ability of mankind to be corrupted as a result of the darkness.

These common themes are significant because they express how war and the Congo have the ability to change a person's perspective on humanity. These works depict the corruptness of mankind and the effects it has on the human psyche.