The phrase “method in the madness” usually refers to a plan that has merit despite the seemingly questionable sanity of the idea itself. However, when taken literally, the phrase suggests that madness itself contains a method or process. The process through which madness is achieved is explored and laid before the reader in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. As the novels narrator travels into the Congo, he gradually learns about the mysterious Mr. Kurtz. The slow process of the literal journey into the heart of darkness symbolizes the process of one’s decent into madness (Brooks). The sequence of events that lead to such a state, are somewhat more difficult to identify. Conrad attempts to show the stages of madness itself and in turn tries
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Before his decent into the jungle, Kurtz was known as a man with ambition and promise. At the end of the story Marlow recalls a man who claimed to be Kurtz’s cousin saying to him, “There was the making of an immense success” (Conrad 157). Another man claimed that Kurtz had a future in politics with his gift of speech and persuasion before his trip into the Congo. From these descriptions of Kurtz, it is established that he was simply a person with ample knowledge and ambition to carry him far in life. They speak of nothing hinting at madness within him before his voyage (Kinney). Therefore, the first step he took into madness was his departure into the Congo, which in turn was his decent into isolation. Marlow describes the journey saying “…you thought yourself bewitched and cut off for ever from everything you had known once” (Conrad 105). This establishes a true wilderness to which the characters submit themselves. Marlow also says, “Going up that river was like travelling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth” (Conrad 105). The world into which these men enter is one not governed by the rules or morals of human civilization and gives no heed to the authority of men. As such, it allows men the freedom to pursue their own ambitions by any means necessary without regard for the method of pursuit or the merit of the goal. This leniency …show more content…
Marlow experiences the descent into the wilderness just as Kurtz would have on his first voyage and his feelings of isolation fill in the first steps of Kurtz’s decline. The rest is filled in by other sources of information in the form of people who knew Kurtz. They fill Marlow in on the voyage and give him a character to piece together. It is known that he gained the praise of natives and at the same time developed a hunger for ivory and pursued it with unquenchable ambition that eventually turned into the obsession that it seems to be in Marlow’s eyes. Finally, realization of one’s own state of madness due to the darkness within completes the decent. Through this process, Conrad defines insanity or madness as a state of losing one’s self in unrestrained and unchecked action. The novel suggests that darkness lies within everyone, darkness being the capacity for evil. With this is the ability to lose one’s self in the darkness if it is delved into. Therefore, in turn, madness and the capability of losing sanity is within everyone and, as in Kurtz’s case, it proves itself to be inescapable for its
Before his decent into the jungle, Kurtz was known as a man with ambition and promise. At the end of the story Marlow recalls a man who claimed to be Kurtz’s cousin saying to him, “There was the making of an immense success” (Conrad 157). Another man claimed that Kurtz had a future in politics with his gift of speech and persuasion before his trip into the Congo. From these descriptions of Kurtz, it is established that he was simply a person with ample knowledge and ambition to carry him far in life. They speak of nothing hinting at madness within him before his voyage (Kinney). Therefore, the first step he took into madness was his departure into the Congo, which in turn was his decent into isolation. Marlow describes the journey saying “…you thought yourself bewitched and cut off for ever from everything you had known once” (Conrad 105). This establishes a true wilderness to which the characters submit themselves. Marlow also says, “Going up that river was like travelling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth” (Conrad 105). The world into which these men enter is one not governed by the rules or morals of human civilization and gives no heed to the authority of men. As such, it allows men the freedom to pursue their own ambitions by any means necessary without regard for the method of pursuit or the merit of the goal. This leniency …show more content…
Marlow experiences the descent into the wilderness just as Kurtz would have on his first voyage and his feelings of isolation fill in the first steps of Kurtz’s decline. The rest is filled in by other sources of information in the form of people who knew Kurtz. They fill Marlow in on the voyage and give him a character to piece together. It is known that he gained the praise of natives and at the same time developed a hunger for ivory and pursued it with unquenchable ambition that eventually turned into the obsession that it seems to be in Marlow’s eyes. Finally, realization of one’s own state of madness due to the darkness within completes the decent. Through this process, Conrad defines insanity or madness as a state of losing one’s self in unrestrained and unchecked action. The novel suggests that darkness lies within everyone, darkness being the capacity for evil. With this is the ability to lose one’s self in the darkness if it is delved into. Therefore, in turn, madness and the capability of losing sanity is within everyone and, as in Kurtz’s case, it proves itself to be inescapable for its