Suffering through Reality:
An analysis of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych
Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych are two novels that in combination are an embodiment of the ideas of the modernist movement. Modernism is defined as a philosophical movement that, along with cultural trends and changes, arose from wide-scale and far-reaching transformations in Western society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These new transformations of Western society were the beginnings of what is now known as the West. Each of these authors had a specific aim in writing each of these books, though within the realms of the modernist movement, they did not directly display …show more content…
In Conrad’s book, the internal conflict began with Marlow’s excitement for adventure, “The best way I can explain it to you is by saying that, for a second or two, I felt as though, instead of going to the centre of a continent, I were about to set off for the centre of the earth.” This internal conflict ends with his realization of the horrors of the ivory business he is becoming a great part of: the mistreatment and enslavement of the Africans. For The Death of Ivan Ilych, the internal conflict begins when Ivan has a fairly normal and joyful childhood, though this internal conflict reappears in the end when he begins to wonder if his life, all but his childhood, was really as well-lived as he had thought. Ivan was a casual man of success, he had money, a job he enjoyed, was married, and put on a good family front. However, he never grew in intellect or wisdom. In a similar manner, Marlow begins his story by showing how he was wanting a traditional life that society said was best. Sadly, both of these men are initially ‘hollowmen,’ as T.S. Eliot would put it. Ivan’s external conflict is quite obviously his physical ailments and ultimate death. However, it is brought into the mind of the reader the question of whether this physical ailment is legitimate: all of the doctors brought in throughout the story …show more content…
Each of these realizations (that life is not only about having adventures and living a life society would approve of ) are both brought about by suffering and horror. From The Death of Ivan Ilych, “But this discomfort increased and, though not exactly painful, grew into a sense of pressure in his side accompanied by ill humor. And his irritability became worse and worse and began to mar the agreeable, easy, and correct life that had established itself in the Golovin family.” This pain described can be replicated into the pain of reality disturbing something the shallow human thought to be correct. In the beginning of Heart of Darkness, as Marlow is beginning his storytelling, he foreshadows his story and captures the message of it all very simply: "The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much." This captures the very answer to question of what it was that these characters realized in death: reality, and with reality comes sadness and heartbreak, it cannot be avoided. Ivan, especially exemplified in his life, was ‘going through the motions,’ and not truly living and loving. Luckily for Marlow, as he witnessed Kurtz have this realization, he
An analysis of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych
Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych are two novels that in combination are an embodiment of the ideas of the modernist movement. Modernism is defined as a philosophical movement that, along with cultural trends and changes, arose from wide-scale and far-reaching transformations in Western society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These new transformations of Western society were the beginnings of what is now known as the West. Each of these authors had a specific aim in writing each of these books, though within the realms of the modernist movement, they did not directly display …show more content…
In Conrad’s book, the internal conflict began with Marlow’s excitement for adventure, “The best way I can explain it to you is by saying that, for a second or two, I felt as though, instead of going to the centre of a continent, I were about to set off for the centre of the earth.” This internal conflict ends with his realization of the horrors of the ivory business he is becoming a great part of: the mistreatment and enslavement of the Africans. For The Death of Ivan Ilych, the internal conflict begins when Ivan has a fairly normal and joyful childhood, though this internal conflict reappears in the end when he begins to wonder if his life, all but his childhood, was really as well-lived as he had thought. Ivan was a casual man of success, he had money, a job he enjoyed, was married, and put on a good family front. However, he never grew in intellect or wisdom. In a similar manner, Marlow begins his story by showing how he was wanting a traditional life that society said was best. Sadly, both of these men are initially ‘hollowmen,’ as T.S. Eliot would put it. Ivan’s external conflict is quite obviously his physical ailments and ultimate death. However, it is brought into the mind of the reader the question of whether this physical ailment is legitimate: all of the doctors brought in throughout the story …show more content…
Each of these realizations (that life is not only about having adventures and living a life society would approve of ) are both brought about by suffering and horror. From The Death of Ivan Ilych, “But this discomfort increased and, though not exactly painful, grew into a sense of pressure in his side accompanied by ill humor. And his irritability became worse and worse and began to mar the agreeable, easy, and correct life that had established itself in the Golovin family.” This pain described can be replicated into the pain of reality disturbing something the shallow human thought to be correct. In the beginning of Heart of Darkness, as Marlow is beginning his storytelling, he foreshadows his story and captures the message of it all very simply: "The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much." This captures the very answer to question of what it was that these characters realized in death: reality, and with reality comes sadness and heartbreak, it cannot be avoided. Ivan, especially exemplified in his life, was ‘going through the motions,’ and not truly living and loving. Luckily for Marlow, as he witnessed Kurtz have this realization, he