ehm...
I posted this to a member I think about 11 months ago (must be that time when high schoolers read this book...)
I will then address your question specifically. Please read through my thoughts.
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ok for my ap english class i have to write an essay comparing and contrasting, mostly Things Fall Apart and Heart of Darkness. But, i need to find allusions that tie with the Bible. I'm kinda having a little trouble understanding little bit from both novels. if anyone could help me, thank you very much. >>
as one of the few members who usually respond to any literary question, I think I will tackle this question despite the length of the following post.
first, let me disseminate the question. Then, I shall provide brief analysis of both works, and last I shall note any theistic, particularly Christian, significance of the novels and any problems they pose to contemporary theologians. (If Optimus, isildur, Athanasius, or others want to add to the last part, I would appreciate it)
Anywho, here?s how I see the question: what do TFA and HOD have in common and how are they different? Do any themes that they address have significance to a Christian worldview, whether modern, or as exemplified during the tainted era of imperialism?
With that in mind, let me try to explain both novels to you because I highly doubt you understood all the intricacies and implications of the themes, especially as applied to Christianity.
HOD?s main theme was one where a ?civilized? man regresses to a ?primitive state?. The impact Conrad makes is that despite all the order and rules present in a society and a world, underlying all of the order and rules is chaos. The chaos is what humankind tries to escape. Conrad also adds another twist by having his setting be in Africa. This twist is religious in nature. Conrad deals heavily with color (use of white and black in the novel) and with ideas of good and evil. Evil, not just ?bad?. The evil, in HOD is that which man tries to escape. It is also chaos but in an altered form because it is the way of life for the tribespeople. In effect, the evil is really the embracement of the totality of descendence (if you want, tie this in with earlier nihilism by Kafka, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, or the existentialism of Dostoyevsky or the plays of Shakespeare as well as poetry of the time?) where a sort of emptiness replaces chaos. But it is not sole emptiness, since Conrad emphasizes evil. Moreover, it is the negation of good and transcendence through the realization of the veneer that covers civilization. At any time, this veneer is likely to burst (note how Conrad shows this in the novel. As they get closer to Africa, strange things happen. They are attacked, that whole business with the fire, the officer, the slaves, etc) revealing the insanity inside.
Conrad essentially says this: look at us, the civilized people. We have our order, our God, our commerce, and our culture, but what good is it? We try to hard to escape our ?original sin? and our condition by the establishment of all this order. The order is not meant to be a balance. It is meant to conceal and to hide our true nature.
To Conrad, the true nature is the beast- all that is recognized by civilized man as evil. It is the primitive, the earthly (note the woman who commanded the tribe and contrast with the european fiancee), the drive behind all drives and the unavoidable (compare this to lord of the flies, you should have read that). This is rejected by Christianity because it is viewed as sin. I should rather say that the mass Christianity of the time in European society, both Catholic, and Protestant sought to avoid the sin and escape it rather than confronting it and recognizing it as Conrad did. In effect, they practiced what Sartre calls ?la mauvaise foi?, bad faith (if you?ve read Sartre, tie this is too) and self-deception.
More specifically, Christianity said that man, since he was born imperfect (genesis, original sin) was doomed to live with his imperfection unless he lived by God?s rules (the first five books of the Bible, the Hebrew Law). But that was insufficient, and God sent his Son, Jesus to redeem the sins of man and to help each individual find God. The Law was no longer sufficient. It was not enough for transcendence. Direct transcendence and the ending of alienation between man and God could be achieved through Christ. But this still recognized that alienation existed and that man was inherently fallible and imperfect. This was seen as a stigma and as something bad. This WAS the evil.
Conrad recognized this evil but portrayed a novel where a person embraced the evil. Where the person saw the evil present inside and said ?hell, I can?t escape this no matter what Europe tells me?. Indirectly, it was an attack on Christendom. Conrad wasn?t satisfied with what Europe turned Christianity into. Thus he wrote the novel. He doesn?t offer a solution, however.
Now look at TFA. The Christians/missionaries bring ?order? into a ?primitive society?. What is the result of the order? It destroys the old, primitive order. It replaces the old religion with the new, which is supposedly better. But according to the author, this really creates chaos and imbalance because the old system worked. The elders taught the young, the values were passed down, the society worked based on agreed principles. And along comes civilized man. Civilized man has religion as a part of culture and even though the religion may not necessarily dictate forcing down new western order and societal norms (Christianity, in its pure form encompasses little social norms and rather serves as a guide), the society created does this anyway. SO the end result is a lack of tolerance which leads to enslavement. The westerners themselves don?t realize this because they are solely concerned with keeping up the façade that is western civilization (same point that Conrad makes). Yet, this is not so clearly evident in TFA. TFA just talks about one hero, (Okonkwo? It?s been awhile since I?ve read the piece) and the experiences of the hero with its consequences on society. The hero is representative of the whole and his struggle represents the society.
One little twist you can have in comparing the novels is having the evil encountered by the hero in HOD be the same as the Christian order encountered in TFA. So, the good values of one become the bad values of the other. This is a pluralistic view of cultural relativism. You can then allude to the message in the Bible of going into the world to spread the word of God and the clashing of ideas when this does occur.
I don?t have the texts in front of me so I can?t look up specific examples but here?s another thought. Compare the heroes of both novels to Jesus. Both experienced a change and Jesus caused a change. But inevitably, they had to face themselves (Gesthemane) and this facing led to a final act of either enlightenment, sacrifice, or suicide.
You can do a lot with this. I didn?t organize my thought so I hope you can follow this and that this will give you some ideas on what to write in your essay. I also don?t know what you mean by ?allusions to the Bible? so a clarification would help here if you want more assistance.
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Identify the "spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation" evident in the ending of Heart of Darkness and explain its significance in the work as a whole.
Look at what happens. In the end, the last scene is a looking out into the darkness that is beyond civilization. The implication the sailor recognizes is that people build civilizations and creature culture to try and get away from themselves. In reality, the darkness in not very far away and this recognition can cause one to break through the facade of culture and get to the bottom. "Heart" in early history of ideas was not really a physical organ or the center of emotion and thought as much as it was the real center of being, the real sort of self that people have. That's a sidetrack. Look at what happens when we reach it though. It starts out in culture and we undergo an experience, going down to the heart of darkness. In the end, when we return to civilization (by we I mean the reader, sorry for any confusion) we see the world anew from different eyes. We are different. We have seen the depths of our own selves and we have a better understanding of the fragile suface of humanity and civilization. The reconciliation comes when the person who has seen the heart of darkness returns and is able to live in the society, but with a new view.
Does that make sense? The point is the actual process and the change and the ensuing merging of the darkness and the civilizwed world, something the main character guy could not do and thus died. That's the real lesson.
Cheers !
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