The Role of Madness in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

The novelette kernel of Darkness was written by the British novelist Joseph Conrad and appeared, before its publication in 1902, as a threesome-part series in Blackwoods Magazine. This frame state custodyt or report within a story follows the lead character Charlie Marlow as he describes his adventures to a group of men aboard a ship. It also tells of an in the beginning counterbalancet in Marlows vivification, at a time when he was works as a steamboat captain in a country whose name is non specified in the book.The story provides contri plainlyors with a glimpse into the mind and consciousness of Marlow as he travels through the illuminatederal marrow squash of Darkness and comes face-to-face with the atrocities of racism and slavery. Marlows predecessor, the g overnment-employed bead agent Kurtz, dominates the internals through rage and coercion. When the ii men finally meet, Marlow recognizes in Kurtz a mere shell of a domain, the substance and soul of which has been devoured by the discourtesy of his take in righteouss. This realization propels Marlow to scrutinize his own virtues and to decide whether or not to via media them for the sake of wealth.The novella revolves slightly three central themes the hypocrisy of imperialism, unwiseness as a result of imperialism, and the absurdity of wretched (http//www.sparknotes.com/lit/heart/facts.html, 2006a). In burden of Darkness, insanity is closely associated with the concept of imperialism. In the text, Africa is presented as a cause and gun for diseases of the body and of the mind. Madness also serves two functions in the novella.First, it functions as an ironic thingummy to engage the readers sympathies (http//www.sparknotes.com/lit/heart/themes.html, 2006b). As Marlow is informed from the beginning, the ivory agent Kurtz is tender. However, as the story unfolds, it becomes apparent that this frenzy is relative that madness in the context of the setting in which the characters m ove is quite hard to define. This causes the reader to develop a feeling of sympathy towards Kurtz and a sense of doubt and suspect towards the Company. It also propels Marlow, who was initially suspicious of Kurtz, to realize with him.Madness also serves to create the emergency of social fictions (http//www.sparknotes.com/lit/heart/themes.html, 2006b). horizontal though rationales and social norms are strewn passim nerve of Darkness, they are ultimately turn out to be utterly false and even causative of evil. However, they are indispensable in the quest of providing a sense of personal security and harmony among groups.In substance of Darkness, madness is the result of having been detached from unmatcheds own social acres and being permitted to become the l oneness ump of ones own actions. Therefore, madness is associated not only with supreme force play and moral genius but to human beingss primary and deep-seated brand the character of Kurtz answers to no one but h imself, and this proves in like manner much for any one person to tolerate.In affection of Darkness, Kurtz proves ineffectual to resolve the contradictions between his own moral beliefs and cultural assumptions and subsequently sinks into madness when he begins to identify with the natives. Marlow says that Kurtz had gone(p) mad because his soul Being along in the natural state, had looked into itself, and by heavens I tell you, it had gone mad. (http//web.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/eng109/HeartSG.htm). This is in contrast to Kurtzs personality of being world-beater-hungry.The madness begins when Kurtz, who is mad with power provided by his compulsive control over his domain, begins to succumb to the lure of the wilderness and the native people. He goes mad when his greed clashes with his evolution affinity towards the natives. The subsequent moral dilemma proves too much for him. Marlow, in his relative of his adventures, says that the instant of the native ceremony was t he moment when he realized that Kurtz had gone mad when he went alone into the wilderness, when his tactual sensation had been go forth alone with itself.Marlow recognizes that Kurtz is under the spell of the wilderness and tries to understand what had drawn Kurtz into the edge of the quality towards the throb of drums, the drone of weird incantations delighted his unlawful soul beyond the leap of permitted aspiration (http//web.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/eng109/HeartSG.htm).Marlow, who is uninterested with wealth or advancement in the Company, is focused in the main on keeping his sanity amidst the madness in his surroundings. Nevertheless, his experiences leave him broken and distressed. The somatic and mental torment he was pressure to endure proved to be too much for him. Through Kurtz, Marlow had been drawn into the standoff as well. When Kurtz says his last words, The wickedness The horror (http//web.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/eng109/HeartSG.htm), Marlow was forced t o face death.The experience leaves him wooly-minded and disturbed. He tells the group that when the natives buried Kurtz, they had just about buried him as well. When he returns to the urban center from which he came, Marlow finds the people there stupid and he continues to dwell on Kurtz and the remnants of the life Kurtz had left behind. When he goes to visit Kurtzs fianc, he feels the presence of Kurtzs spirit entering the house with him. As Marlow crop into the fiancs house, he imagines the natives dancing around their ceremonial fires, and hears Kurtzs voice discussing ivory. Madness, as a theme in Heart of Darkness, serves to reinforce the fact that when given absolute power over himself and those under his influence, man is susceptible to his own dark nature. bat CitedConrad, J. (1899). Heart of Darkness. In Davis, et. al. Eds. (1995). Western writings in a World linguistic context Volume 2 The Enlightenment passim the Present. New York St. Martins Press. Retrieved fro m <http//web.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/eng109/HeartSG.htm> on November 15, 2006.Sparknotes. (2006a). Heart of Darkness story Guide. Sparknotes at onces Most Popular Study Guides from Barnes & axerophthol Noble. Retrieved from <http//www.sparknotes.com/lit/heart/facts.html> on November 14, 2006.Sparknotes. (2006b). Heart of Darkness Study Guide Themes, Motifs and Symbols. Sparknotes Todays Most Popular Study Guides from Barnes & Noble. Retrieved from <http//www.sparknotes.com/lit/heart/themes.html> on November 14, 2006.