Heart of Darkness: The Fictive Bridge from Durkheim’s Homo Duplex to Freud’s Civilization’s Discontents

Yıl 2023, Cilt: 33 Sayı: 2, 331 - 352, 25.12.2023

Sinan Gül

https://doi.org/10.26650/LITERA2023-1205179

Öz

This essay undertakes an analysis of the underlying causes behind Kurtz’s difficulties in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, primarily drawing upon the scholarly works of Emile Durkheim and Sigmund Freud regarding civilization and its discontents. Drawing from sociological and psychological concepts of the late nineteenth century and examining instances of alienation within industrialized society, the paper approaches Kurtz’s issues of corruption through Durkheim’s homo duplex and Freud’s theory of psychological conflicts among the id, ego, and superego. Kurtz emerges as a construct and casualty of European society, burdened by its imposition of strict rules and regulations aimed at subduing primal desires and interests in favor of collective security, peace, and social order. Therefore, his liberation from the oppressive structures of European society in the Congo grants him the opportunity to expose his primal self, characterized by inclinations towards violence, debauchery, and transgressive behavior. The responsibility for transforming Mr. Kurtz into the ruler of the jungle cannot be placed solely on the natives, as the central culprit, as elucidated by Conrad’s interventions in the text, is the European civilization that curtails and suppresses individual identities and desires. The essay portrays the prevalent discontentment and restlessness inherent in the early stages of industrial society through a combination of sociological and psychological elements and fictive characters.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad, Homo Duplex, Civilization, Primal instinct

Kaynakça

• Abrams, M. H. (1993). A Glossary of Literary Terms (6th ed.). New York: Wadsworth Punlishing. google scholar
• Achebe, C. (1978). An Image of Africa. Research in African Literatures, 7-32. google scholar
• Berger, S. (2006) A Companion to Nineteenth-Century Europe: 1789-1914. London: Wiley-Blackwell. google scholar
• Bemrose, J. (1990, December 17). Heart of Darkness. Maclean’s https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1990/12/17/ heart-of-darkness google scholar
• Bloom, H. (2008). Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. New York: Infobase Pub. google scholar
• Conrad, J. (1905). Autocracy and War. The North American Review, 181(584), 33-55. google scholar
• Conrad, J. (1988). Heart of Darkness. New York: Norton. google scholar
• Darwin, Charles, and Leonard Kebler. (1859) On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or, The preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life . London: J. Murray, google scholar
• Durkheim, E. (1951 [1897]). Suicide, a study in sociology (J. A. Spaulding, & G. Simpson, Trans.). London: Routledge. google scholar
• Durkheim, E. (1938). The rules of sociological method (8th ed.). University of Chicago Press: Chicago. google scholar
• Durkheim, E. (1964). The Division of Labour in Society. New York: Free Press. google scholar
• Eagleton, T. (1976). Criticism and Ideology: A Study in Marxist Literary Theory. London: Verso. google scholar
• Freud, S. (1961). Civilization and Its Discontents. New York: W W Norton. google scholar
• Freud, S., 1997. The interpretation of dreams, Hertfordshire, England: Wordsworth Editions. google scholar
• Golanka, M. (1985). Mr. Kurtz, I Presume? Livingstone and Stanley as Prototypes of Kurtz and Marlow. Studies in the Novel, 194-202. google scholar
• Gorra, M. (2007). Joseph Conrad. The Hudson Review, 59(4), 548-565. google scholar
• Hampson, R. (2000). Cross-Cultural Encounters in Joseph Conrad’s Malay Fiction. Hampshire: Palgrave. google scholar
• Lawtoo, N. (Dü.). (2012). Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Contemporary Thought: Revisiting the Horror with Lacoue-Labarthe. London: Bloomsbury Academic. google scholar
• Lyell, Charles, Sir. (1830). Principles of geology : being an attempt to explain the former changes of the earth’s surface, by reference to causes now in operation (v. 3). John Murray https://library.si.edu/digital-library/book/ principlesgeolov3lyel google scholar
• Marx, Karl. (1959). Das Kapital, a critique of political economy. Chicago: H. Regnery. google scholar
• McClure, J. A. (1981). Kipling&Conrad, The Colonial Fiction. London: Harvard University Press. google scholar
• Meis, M. (2013, April 15). thesmartset. https://www.thesmartset.com/article04151301 google scholar
• Najder, Z. e. (1964). Conrad’s Polish Background: Letters to and From Polish Friends. (Z. Najder, Ed., & H. Carroll, Trans.) London: Oxford University Press. google scholar
• Peters, J. G. (2006). The Cambridge Introduction to Joseph Conrad. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. google scholar
• Singh, F. B. (1978). The Colonialistic Bias of Heart of Darkness. Conradiana: A Journal of Joseph Conrad, 49-55. google scholar
• Watts, C. (2012). Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’: A Critical and Contextual Discussion. Conrad Studies, iii-153. google scholar