Darkness of the Heart

In the preface of his novel, The Nigger of The “Narcissus”, Joseph Conrad wrote, “My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word to make you hear, to make you feel – it is, before all, to make you see… If I succeed you shall find there … that glimpse of truth for which you have forgotten to ask.” He succeeded in this task in his following novel, The Heart of Darkness, as well. Through the character of Mr. Kurtz, Conrad exposes the inherent malevolence which still lingers in the hearts of men.

The Darkness of Heart media project, created by Jordan Hansen, Elijah Hinsch, and Shèri Leveille-Rensch, makes use of Conrad’s storyteller, Charles Marlow, to present evidence proving Conrad’s fictional “darkness” is all too real. The project consists of a series of "private" blogs all linked to the blog of Charles Marlow. Marlow describes how, throughout his travels of the world, he has come across people who remind him of Mr. Kurtz. As Marlow mentions a person, he explains why they remind him of Mr. Kurtz and provides a link to said person’s blog. Each blog was written by members of the Darkness of Heart project team in an attempt to provide a factual history of the real world character from that character's perspective. Some creative license was taken with respect to personality and voice. The subjects profiled were: Mr. Kurtz, Idi Amin, Joseph Kony, Saddam Hussein, Mao Ze Dong, Kim Jung Il, Fidel Castro, and Uncle Sam (The United States Federal Government).

In The Heart of Darkness, both Mr. Kurtz and Charles Marlow are both recommended to the continental trading society they worked for, known simply as the Company, by the same group of people; people interested in sending missionaries to Africa. “It appeared, however, I was also one of the Workers, with a capital – you know. Something like an emissary of light, something like a lower sort of apostle” (Conrad, Heart of Darkness 25). In reality, trading companies advertised a dual purpose for expanding into new territories, that of obtaining new resources and the second for bringing civilization to the indigenous population. The latter reason brought them widespread public support. Privately, the agents of the Company were simply seeking profit in the form of ivory. “The word ‘ivory’ rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed. You would think they were praying to it… The only real feeling was a desire to get appointed to a trading-post where ivory was to be had, so that they could earn percentages. They intrigued and slandered and hated each other only on that account” (34-35). The character of Mr. Kurtz likewise has a dual motive. Having been presented to the Company by the same referring agents as Marlow, it is publically assumed Kurtz has gone to Africa with a missionary goal, as Marlow discovered in his first conversation with the brick maker, “You are of the new gang – the gang of virtue. The same people who sent him specially also recommended you” (36). However, Mr. Kurtz had taken a position with the Company simply for financial gain. “He had given me some reason to infer that it was his impatience of comparative poverty that drove him out there” (76).

Many of the subjects mentioned in the Darkness of Heart project publically presented motives designed to increase popular support while privately, their motives were less than altruistic. Idi Amin claimed to be “just a soldier with a concern for my country and my people” while he confiscated the property of his murder victims and misappropriated millions of dollars of military funding (Harris). Fidel Castro was originally part of a political group whose primary aims were economic independence and social reforms. Yet, when he gained control of Cuban politics, he quickly reverted to a Communist form of government (A&E Television Networks, LLC). According to former Cuban officials, Castro had been skimming from the profits of state-owned businesses for years. Forbes magazine listed him on their list of wealthiest rulers in 2006, though Castro himself insisted that his “personal net worth is zero” (Kroll)

Joseph Kony is responsible for hundreds of thousands of child abductions in Uganda. He kidnaps the youth in order to train them into becoming violent soldiers or, for many girls, sex slaves. Kony claims that his mission is to establish unity and peace throughout African countries, specifically Sudan and Uganda. However, the acts he forces his child soldiers to perform are not in line with those of any other military force. Hence, it can be inferred that Joseph Kony is trying to create intense fear among the people of central Africa in order to someday gain power as a political leader (BBC News).

Even Uncle Sam claimed to be trying to provide Native Americans a place where they “could live free from white harassment” and be “free to develop at their own pace” to “ensure the survival of the Native American cultures” (Digital History), when in fact the primary reason for the relocation of the Native American people was to provide more land for white Americans to settle.

Aside from a duality of purpose, another trait the Darkness of Heart subjects possessed in common with Conrad’s character was a healthy dose of narcissism. This trait manifested in Mr. Kurtz in both his charismatic charm and his grandiosity. Mr. Kurtz was charming. “He had the power to charm or frighten rudimentary souls into an aggravated witchdance in his honour” (Conrad, Heart of Darkness 56). He was eloquent. “The point was in his being a gifted creature, and that of all his gifts the one that stood out pre-eminently, that carried with it a sense of real presence, was his ability to talk, his words – the gift of expression, the bewildering, the illuminating, the most exalted and the most contemptible, the pulsating stream of light, or the deceitful flow from the heart of impenetrable darkness” (54). Mr. Kurtz set himself up as a deity. “He had taken a high seat amongst the devils of the land – I mean literally” because he believed “we whites, from the point of development we had arrived at, ‘must necessarily appear to them [savages] in the nature of supernatural beings – we approach them with the might of a deity,’ … ‘By the simple exercise of our will we can exert a power for good practically unbounded’” (56).

Again, Idi Amin personifies this trait. “What people found fascinating was this very spontaneous person. The man who’d be out there; who’d mix with the crowd; who’d join them in dancing, in any celebration. He was someone who connected so much with the common man” (CCTV Africa). But even as a man who connected with “the common man” he set himself up as more. He declared himself “His Excellency President for Life Field Marshall Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Lord of all the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea, and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular” (O'Connor). Saddam Hussein is another example who personifies both charm and grandiosity. Journalist Mark Bowden described Hussein as “a thoughtful, articulate, intelligent politician” (Bowden). Yet at the same time, Hussein erected huge statues of himself all over his country and created a mythology where he had heroic relatives, such as Nebuchadnezzar (O'Connor). While Kim Jung Il isn’t as charming as his dictatorial peers, he certainly rivals them in narcissism. The official North Korean biographies of him make outrageous claims about his accomplishments such as that he invented hamburgers or scored a 38 under par on his first ever game of golf (Chandler).

The final item of comparison between Mr. Kurtz and the Darkness of Heart subjects are their acts of cruelty. In Heart of Darkness, Kurtz is not the only perpetrator of cruel acts. The Company conscripts the Native Africans into forced labor in which they require them to work for very little pay; “Strings of dusty niggers with splay feet arrived and departed; a stream of manufactured goods, rubbishy cottons, beads, and brass wire sent into the depts. Of darkness, and in return came a precious trickle of ivory” (Conrad, Heart of Darkness 30). Kurtz on the other hand resorts to more violent methods for control. He resorted to murder “because he could do so, and had a fancy for it, and there was nothing on earth to prevent him killing whom he jolly well pleased” (61). He enjoyed the results of his brutality as well, since he posted the heads of his victims on stakes in front of and facing his house (62).

Many of the Darkness of Heart subjects also participated in a myriad of acts of cruelty and murder. The death toll attributed to Idi Amin is 300,000, while rumors abounded that he kept photos of his victims’ bludgeoned bodies and some of their heads in his refrigerator (Silva). Mao Ze Dong fostered a national climate of fear in China in which people were afraid to speak anything which was against the “official party line”. He killed millions and sent many more to live in labor camps or in rural China (Pettinger). Joseph Kony forces children into lives as soldiers and sex slaves (BBC News). Fidel Castro has had over 4,000 people killed by firing squad and many more have died on his orders (Robles). Finally, Uncle Sam’s death toll numbers in the millions from the treatment of the Native Americans alone (Lewy).

Joseph Conrad used the fictional character of Mr. Kurtz to represent the less acceptable characteristics of mankind. These attibutes are inherent to every member of the human race to varying degrees, from the selfish or prideful thought to the very act of murder. Left unchecked, these tendencies result in the atrocities conducted by the subjects of the Darkness of Heart project. In the words of Lord Acton, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men” (Acton Institute). Time has brought much change since Joseph Conrad penned The Heart of Darkness, but one thing still remains - darkness still lurks in the hearts of man. 

Print Sources:

Conrad, Joseph. "Heart of Darkness." Akbari, Suzanne, et al. The Norton Anthology of World Literature Volume F . New York : W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. 17-78. Print.

Giving Voice to Millions

Fifteen million people were displaced in 1947 when Great Britain’s presence in India ended. One of Great Britain’s final acts in the area was to create the separate countries of India and Pakistan (Keen). These fifteen million people became refugees based on their religion and the new national boundaries created by a government which was leaving the area. One of these people was writer Saadat Hasan Manto. In his short story titled “Toba Tek Singh”, Manto highlights the emotional impact assigning new borders had on the indigenous population.

The separation of British India into India and Pakistan divided 400 million based solely on their religion, resulting in what could be the largest mass migration of people ever. Partitioning India/Pakistan was said to be done to accommodate religious differences between the Muslims, who became citizens of newly created Pakistan, and the Hindus, who made up the primary population of India. The fact is, prior to European involvement these two religions, and a third – the Sikhs – were able to coexist in the same regions. A quote from the private journal of Christopher Beaumont, private secretary to chairman of the Indo-Pakistan Boundary Commission, states “The trouble was that Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs were an integrated population so that it was impossible to make a frontier without widespread dislocation” (BBC News). Beaumont’s journals clearly show that he considered the Partition of India/Pakistan to have been a hasty operation taken without enough consideration of the people who would be directly affected.  

Manto, who chose to stay in India after his family immigrated to Pakistan, was as torn with conflict as the rest of the population. He gave voice to this conflict in his writing. The short story “Toba Tek Singh” expresses the confusion, insecurity, and frustration about the Partition.

One effect of the Partition was confusion about location. Manto expresses this concern - “As to where Pakistan was located, the inmates knew nothing. That was why both the mad and the partially mad were unable to decide whether they were now in India or in Pakistan. If they were in India, where on earth was Pakistan? And if they were in Pakistan, then how come that until only the other day it was India? (Manto 732).” Generations of families lived and died in the same area they were born in. The land is more than just where they live; it has become who they are. Suddenly, that area has a new name and a new religion prevails. Feeling lost and confused, people are uprooted from all they have known and moved somewhere else. “That day he abused every major and minor Hindu and Muslim leader who had cut India into two, turning his beloved into an Indian and him into a Pakistani” (Manto 731).

Confusion leads to insecurity. If the place changed once, it could happen again. Unresolved boundary issues continue to cause problems between India and Pakistan (Keen). Manto also voices this concern – “It was anybody’s guess what was going to happen to Lahore, which was currently in Pakistan but could slide into India at any moment. It was also possible that the entire subcontinent of India might become Pakistan. And who could say if both India and Pakistan might not entirely vanish from the map of the world one day?”

Confusion also leads to resistance, drawing a line in the sand. In Manto’s story two characters react this way. One, a Muslim inmate, climbs a tree and refuses to come down stating, “’I wish to live neither in Indian nor in Pakistan I wish to live in this tree.’ (Manto 730)”.  This character is eventually persuaded to come down from the tree, in essence conceding to the plan of those in charge. The other, the title character who is a Sikh, refused to cross from one country to the other. He refused to capitulate to the powers that be and chose to die as a man between countries. “There, behind barbed wire, on one side, lay India and behind more barbed wire, on the other side, lay Pakistan. In between, on a bit of earth which had no name, lay Toba Tek Singh. (734)” . It was resistance to the partition that resulted in “riots, rapes, murders, and looting” along the border, especially in Punjab (Keen) (BBC News).

In his short story “Toba Tek Singh”, Saadat Hasan Manto was able to highlight the angst felt by citizens displaced by the Partition. Through the characters’ reactions to the news of the Partition, Manto gives voice to all those who were directly affected by the government’s decisions. The setting of an insane asylum allowed the characters to speak freely of their confusion, their frustration, their loss of identity, and, in some, their resistance to new ideology. 

Sources: 

BBC News. 10 August 2007. Partitioning India Over Lunch. Web. 8 February 2014. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6926464.stm>.

Keen, Shirin. "Partition of India." July 2012. Postcolonial Studies @ Emory. Web. 7 February 2014. <http://postcolonialstudies.emory.edu/partition-of-india/>.

Manto, Saadat Hasan. "Toba Tek Singh." Akbari, Suzane, et al. Norton Anthology of World Literature Volume F. New York, NY : W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. 729-734. Print .

Beauty and Brains a Dangerous Woman Make

            China’s Tang Dynasty brought a surge in art and literature to China. Some of the renowned poets of the era were Li Po, Tu Fu, and Wang Wei, who made their fame through the simplicity and naturalism in their work (ushistory.org). Longer fiction in the form of chuanqi, or “records of marvels” also emerged during this time period. One author of this genre was Yuan Zhen, though he was also a poet (Zhen 1053). The Tang Dynasty was also an enlightened period for women, compared to other eras of ancient China. It was during this time that women were allowed to inherit property from their husbands, receive a lawful divorce, and were granted the same rights to and opportunities for education that men already held (ushistory.org). Women finally had the opportunities to live up to their full potential, which may have caused some feelings of anxiety in their male counterparts. Yuan Zhen’s “The Story of Yingying” illustrates male fear of the power available to beautiful, intelligent women.

            “The Story of Yingying” is a love story. A young scholar, Zhang, meets a beautiful young girl, Miss Cui, and they fall in love. However, the young lovers, each through their own actions, contribute to the end of their relationship. Zhang leaves Miss Cui to pursue his education while Miss Cui revealed to him that she knew exactly the power she held and was not afraid to wield it. She played on his sense of responsibility toward her and tried to make him feel guilty. “To seduce someone and then abandon her is perfectly natural, and it would be presumptuous of me to resent it. It would be an act of charity on your part if, having first seduced me, you were to go through with it and fulfill your oath of lifelong devotion…. However I see that you are not happy and I have no way to cheer you up” (Zhen 1057).

            In a land where women had only recently been able to own their own land or become educated, there were few avenues available for women to better their circumstances. Women who were blessed with beauty could use their intelligence and some emotional manipulation to gain favors from the men who controlled their lives. Miss Cui is both beautiful and educated. “Her beauty was extraordinary, so radiant it took the breath away” (Zhen 1055). The fact that she reads and writes poetry shows that she is educated (Hoffert). “But I have noticed that she writes a lot. She is always reciting poetry to herself and is moved by it for a long time after” (Zhen 1055).

            Zhang is enamored of her. After their first stolen night together, he writes a poem about it entitled “An Encounter with an Immortal” (Zhen 1057). He is, in fact, so distracted by his liaison with Miss Cui that he fails his examinations and must remain in the capital city another year in order to retake the exams (1058). He writes to Miss Cui and explains the situation, and upon receiving her response, he decides that he must end his relationship with her or she will ruin him. When asked about it, Zhang replies, “It is a general rule that those women endowed by Heaven with great beauty invariably either destroy themselves or destroy someone else. If the Cui woman were to meet someone with wealth and position, she would use the favor her charms gain her … I can’t imagine what she might turn into. Of old, King Xin of the Shang and King You of the Zhou were brought low by women, in spite of the size of their kingdoms and the extent of their power … and down to the present day their names are objects of ridicule. I have no inner strength to withstand this evil influence. That is why I have resolutely suppressed my love” (1061).

            This statement reveals Zhang’s fear that his love for Miss Cui would be his ruin. She is a beautiful woman, well educated, and his feelings for her make him want to keep her happy, regardless of the personal cost. Miss Cui’s willingness to use his feelings for her to try and manipulate him into bending to her will justifies Zhang’s fears. Her last letter to him contained several phrases that seemed designed to increase his feelings of guilt for not marrying her. “Still it is hard on the person left alone in this far-off place … Since last fall I have been listless and without hope … and I supposed in my innocence, that I could always depend on you” (Zhen 1058). Miss Cui’s blatant manipulation and Zhang’s acknowledgement that his feelings for her could ruin him are why “The Story of Yingying” is an illustration of male fear of the power a beautiful, intelligent woman can wield.

Works Cited

Hoffert, Brian. Tang Dynasty Society and Culture. n.d. Web. 31 October 2013. <http://bhoffert.faculty.noctrl.edu/hst261/15.tang.societyculture.html>.

Jianying, Huo. The Tang Dynasty. November 2001. Web. 31 October 2013. <http://www.chinavoc.com/history/tang/women.htm>.

ushistory.org. Tang Dynasty - The Golden Age. 2013. Web. 31 October 2013. <http://www.ushistory.org/civ/9d.asp>.

Zhen, Yuan. "The Story of Yingying." Akbari, Suzanne, et al. The Norton Anthology of World Literature Third Edition Volume B . New York : W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. 1053-1061. Print .

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How does "text" influence our time?

We all know that some of the most popular novels of their time involve events, political or civil, and social emotions of the time period they were written in. Newspapers and magazines have socially relevant stories of the time in which they were written. The goal is to stay current so the texts of the day are very influenced by the time they are written in. However, have you ever stopped to consider how much those texts influence the times they are written in? I feel that today’s society is negatively impacted by the sheer number of texts available to it.

With the improvements made in technology, information travels around the world almost instantaneously. This means that texts can have a greater influence on the citizens of the world by reaching a broader audience more quickly. This allows for more people to be educated and aware of the events going on around them, and could be a great positive agent for society and humanity in general.

People could come together and support each other to bring many positive changes to global societies. Or people could use the wealth of information available to better themselves individually and make informed decisions regarding that issues that affect them personally.

 Unfortunately, the wealth of information so readily available has made people lazy. It means that people no longer take the time to read all the information they receive or to look for the information they need because there are so many results to sift through on a basic search. They skim, read only the parts that stand out, but rarely pay attention to the entirety of the information in a text.

The results of such skimming means that people are only partially informed by the information provided in the texts. This causes people to make uninformed decisions believing that they are fully informed on a situation. Such decisions have the capability of yielding positive results, however, the majority of decisions made without full information have negative consequences.

One such example of this is the fallout from the recent Miss America pageant. The newest Miss America, formerly Miss New York, is of Indian descent. People responded by attacking her race, accusing her of not being an American, but in fact an Arab and people also called her a Muslim.

The Miss America pageant requires its contestants to be American citizens and does have a requirement regarding religion. Yet due to recent events regarding terrorist activities involving people how claim to be Muslim and who happen to have brown skin (like so many of the different nationalities in the world). Uninformed people without the motivation to find out ALL of the facts have come to the conclusion that brown skinned means Muslim means terrorist means anti-America.  

The truth is that America has never been a country for only people of white skin. There are many texts available that will give that information. Muslim is a religion, not a terrorists. Yes, a terrorist may be Muslim, but just being a Muslim does NOT make you a terrorist. There are also many texts that will inform you of that available. There are also plenty of white Americans who happen to practice terrorism, not necessarily in the form of being anti-American but in the form of terrorizing any American who is different from themselves. Again, there are plenty of texts available with that information.

There is just so much information available these days on every topic a person could think of that people get overwhelmed or are too lazy to find out all of the information they need to make an intelligent, informed decision and the result is having a negative impact on the society of our time. This is why I believe that texts, the sheer number of them are having a negative impact on our society. But this impact can be mitigated by people making the decision to be completely informed about a situation or an event before making a judgment or decision regarding it. People can change this impact by their actions, because the amount of information is not going to lessen it is just going to grow. Technology will keep getting better and better and the wealth of information we have at our finger tips is just going to keep growing. We as the people managing that information need to be smart about the information we take in and commit to finding out as much as we can before making a decision or judgment on a situation. That is the only way to mitigate the negative effect of so many texts providing so much information. 

Hello!

Hello and welcome to my blog. This blog will be used to record my thoughts regarding some of the things I've been reading lately. I hope to share here my perceptions about the pieces. I hope to get my readers to think about things in a different way. Everyone has a right to their own opinion and I am stating mine here. If you are offended by anything I say here, I apologize, but I am entitled to my opinion just as much as you are. Though, I do sincerely hope you enjoy some of my insights and comment on your own.