One of the greatest strengths of humans is their ability to work as a unit, collaborating to achieve a common goal. No other species is willing to forsake temporary hardship for the long term benefit that humans can strive towards, and the payoffs for suffering through short term plights has in exchange for long term success has allowed humans to work together and become the planet earth’s dominant species. Using their intelligence and their interpersonal skills, humans have united with one another on many occasions throughout their history to form social structures so efficient that the trials and tribulations of reality seem to be pushed outside the walls of civilization, allowing humans to fabricate a new reality surrounding their social
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When observing the entire plot of Heart of Darkness, the only person in the story who was able to gather the knowledge that the events had to offer was Marlow: “Since I had peeped over the edge myself, I understood better the meaning of his stare, that could not see the flame of the candle, but was wide enough to embrace the whole universe” (Conrad, 113). By treading along the edge of sanity, Marlow was able to gather the wisdom of Kurtz and of nature without being consumed by it, and lost like Kurtz. Through the lessons gained by living through his spiritual journey he was able to enlighten himself and share his found knowledge with others on the Nellie, anchored in the Thames. Marlow is able to see both the positives and negatives of civilization and nature after witnessing the two ends of the spectrum in human form. First he experiences the perspective of the manager: the avatar of civilisation, who lives at the outer station. He is surrounded by chaos but kept sane by his focus, tuning out the reality of the situation to maintain his sanity. He was only “devoted to his books, which were in apple-pie order” (Conrad, 36). The downside to this perspective is the disconnection with the real world, and began worrying only for his illusions, thinking of the sounds of dying natives only in that they “distract [his] attention. And without that it is extremely difficult to guard against clerical errors” (Conrad, 37). Then, Marlow experienced Kurtz, who looked too far past the physical realm, leaving “nothing either above or below him . . . He had kicked himself loose of the earth. . . he had kicked the very earth to pieces” (Conrad, 107). Neither of these two perspectives were natural, and neither is desirable as both sides represent views too extreme to be livable. After returning to Europe, and taking time to process the
When observing the entire plot of Heart of Darkness, the only person in the story who was able to gather the knowledge that the events had to offer was Marlow: “Since I had peeped over the edge myself, I understood better the meaning of his stare, that could not see the flame of the candle, but was wide enough to embrace the whole universe” (Conrad, 113). By treading along the edge of sanity, Marlow was able to gather the wisdom of Kurtz and of nature without being consumed by it, and lost like Kurtz. Through the lessons gained by living through his spiritual journey he was able to enlighten himself and share his found knowledge with others on the Nellie, anchored in the Thames. Marlow is able to see both the positives and negatives of civilization and nature after witnessing the two ends of the spectrum in human form. First he experiences the perspective of the manager: the avatar of civilisation, who lives at the outer station. He is surrounded by chaos but kept sane by his focus, tuning out the reality of the situation to maintain his sanity. He was only “devoted to his books, which were in apple-pie order” (Conrad, 36). The downside to this perspective is the disconnection with the real world, and began worrying only for his illusions, thinking of the sounds of dying natives only in that they “distract [his] attention. And without that it is extremely difficult to guard against clerical errors” (Conrad, 37). Then, Marlow experienced Kurtz, who looked too far past the physical realm, leaving “nothing either above or below him . . . He had kicked himself loose of the earth. . . he had kicked the very earth to pieces” (Conrad, 107). Neither of these two perspectives were natural, and neither is desirable as both sides represent views too extreme to be livable. After returning to Europe, and taking time to process the