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Pessimism in Heart of
Darkness.
OR
Heart of Darkness
is not formally tragic. Do you agree?
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The Atmosphere of Pessimism in "Heart of
Darkness".
Conrad had the Elizabethan
fondness for exciting indecent and exotic setting, violent conflict and
gorgeous pageantry. His heroes are not of noble rank, they are typical of
large dimension - in their own world imposing, statuesque figures.
Shakespeare's heroes they grapple with external forces; like them too they are
still lustrous in defeat and death. Conrad's tragedy has in general much the
same pomp and stir, passion and glow.
However dark and deadly, the
world of Shakespeare appears to be governed by moral order or at least has a
definitely moral complexion. Conrad's world is utterly soulless, unintelligible
from any rational point of view. Conrad's villains do not imply a disturbance
of the natural order. Ordinarily, they are simply grotesque, like so much else
in Conrad's primitive society.
Conrad's heroes are always engaged in
hopelessly unequal conflicts with the dark powers. According to Marlow, "a
good many people are born curiously unfitted for the fate awaiting them on this
earth." From these people Conrad chooses his heroes; he is forever
thrusting them into impossible situations that by nature and training they are
ludicrously unprepared to meet. Such, as Conrad sees them, are workings of
Providence.
Like many other characters of
Conrad, Kurtz, the natives, the intended, the Russian, etc, are all alone in
their struggles, all feel the tremendous facts of isolation, of the
indestructible loneliness that surrounds, envelops, clothes every human soul
from the cradle to the grave. There is only Marlow to understand, and even he
sees as through a veil, dimly.