Two Themes in Heart Of Darkness :: Heart Darkness essays

Two Themes in nerve center Of Darkness         thither are many basiss that run through the novel Heart of Darkness. at that place are however two main and significant ones.  These are the theme of constraint and mans journey into self.         The importance of restraint is stressed throughout Heart of Darkness.  In the novel Marlow is saved by restraint, while Kurtz is doomed by his neglect of it.         Marlow felt different about Africa before he went, because the liquidation of the Congo had an idea at the back of it.  Despite an uneasiness, he fabricated that restraint would operate there.  He soon reaches the Company station and receives his start shock, everything there seems meaningless.  He sees no evidence here of that devotion to cogency that makes the idea work.  In the middle of this, Marlow meets a miracle. The chief accountant has the restraint that it takes to get the job done. He entertains up his apearance and his books are in apple-pie order.  Marlow respect this fellow because he has a backbone.         The cannibals some of those ignorant millions, are most totally characterized by restraint.  They outnumber the whites thirty to five and could easily overgorge their starving bellies.  Marlow would have as soon expected restraint from a hyena prowling amongst the corpses of a battlefield.  The cannibals action is one of those human secrets that baffle probability.  This helps Marlow keep his restraint, for if the natives can possess this quality Marlow feels he certainly can.         Kurtz is the essence of the lack of restraint Marlow sees everywhere.  Kurtz has kicked himself loose from the earth.  He owes no allegiance to anything except those sensual powers, those various lusts, those unpermitted aspirations lurking in the darkness of his inner station. Marlow also responds to these dark callings, and he almost becomes their captive.  He confuses the beat of the drum (the call to mans primitive side) with his take in heartbeat, and is pleased.  Yet he does not slip over the edge as Kurtz does.  Marlow keeps to the track.  When he is confronted with the ultimate evil where a man must twilight back on (his) own innate strength, upon (his) own capacity for faithfulness,  he is able to do so,