A Man or a Journey?

   In the classic literary novel, Heart of Darkness, author Joseph Conrad is well-known for his incorporation of deep symbolism.  There are symbolic themes of dark versus light, wilderness and civility, and as I read the book, I noticed that Conrad even used characters to represent his motifs.  One of the most prominent characters in the book, Mr. Kurtz, seems to symbolize the dark journey in and of itself.

The narrator of the tale, Marlow, describes how he began the adventure with an intense desire to discover. As to what he wants to discover, even he is unsure, but he feels and inexplicable yearning to get out of the old routes of his life and into the wilderness of what is now the Congo.  From the beginning, he is told of a man just as mysterious as the waters he is about to enter—a Mr. Kurtz, who has a rumored wealth of knowledge, expertise, and ivory from his travels.  Marlow craves to simply hear the man speak, and says later on in the story, “I was cut to the quick at the idea of having lost the inestimable privilege of listening to the gifted Kurtz” (Conrad 67).   At this point, Marlow has never met the man, yet thinks of him with the same sense of desire he has to navigate the unknown territory.  Both Kurtz and the land represent riches, adventure, knowledge, mystique, glory; the latter the source of untold resources, the former an example of the fame awaiting those who manage to tame them.

                Kurtz’s fate also follows the pattern of disenchantment that Marlow comes to experience as the journey goes on.  As Marlow sees the bloodshed and horrors of the “civilizing” they are doing throughout the land, he realizes that the adventure he has sought is far from noble and simply ends in ruin.  Kurtz is the physical representation of this.  When Marlow finally meets him, (his “coming to grips with reality”), he sees Kurtz as an influential man who has been indoctrinated in the local savagery and obsession with lucrative ivory.  He describes his first impression of Kurtz as follows:

“The wilderness had patted him on the head, and, behold, it was like a ball—an ivory ball; it had caressed him, and—lo!—he had withered; it had taken him, loved him, embraced him, got into his veins, consumed his flesh, and sealed his soul to its own by the inconceivable ceremonies of some devilish initiation” (68).

               

Both Kurtz’s life and Marlow’s adventure in the darkness come to an end, and both are spoken of in ironic reverence and adoration back home in the city.  Marlow is known as one who has braved the unknown and come home a survivor, yet is severely broken and damaged as a result of the trip.  He tells no one of these horrors, letting them believe what they’d like.  He does the same with Kurtz’s memory.  He refrains from describing Kurtz’s madness and dark habits in the jungles, instead allowing his friends and loved ones to cling tightly to the high esteem they have for the dead man.

                Now bringing this back to our day: many Internet users are like the city people of Marlow’s day.  They see those who dare to explore and exploit the facets of the Web as brave and slightly foolhardy. Some people are like Marlow, who are interested in the journey and set out to try their luck in the darkness.  Then there are others who, like Kurtz, embrace the Internet and its components wholeheartedly and are able to profit immensely from it.  But these are they who sometimes lose contact with reality and allow the online world to transform them into a monster who, seemingly normal to those around them, are internally lost in the obsessive and captivating wild into which they have entered.

The Opinionated Audience

There is something to be said for a second opinion.  As I was reading Joseph Conrad's novel, Heart of Darkness, I found my mind wandering a bit.  To be honest, this is not the kind of book I'd usually choose, so even before I finished the book, I tried to learn a little bit more about it to get more of a feel for the story.  I went to popular websites like Amazon.com and Goodreads.com to see what readers there had to say about this classic.  There were, as I suspected, some pretty mixed reviews.  

Some people loved it, and I found that they were more on Goodreads  than Amazon.  For the most part, Goodreads seems to have an audience of devout readers, while Amazon appeals more to the general population.  Another factor in this could be that Amazon asks its  users to create a review after purchasing a book/product, while Goodreads reviews are done by unprompted users.  This led me to conclude that a lot of the people on Goodreads were avid readers who were more apt to view the novel in a positive manner and contribute their opinion than were those on Amazon.  Honestly, Amazon is a go-to for literature assignments and high schoolers tend to not enjoy classic literature as much, which may account for the more negative reviews on the site.

The Listopia feature of Goodreads was pretty entertaining when I searched Heart of Darkness.  It came up on lists such as "Favorite Gay Thrillers" and "Dark, Gritty, and SO Worth It." I don't really know how it applies to those lists, but maybe because of the dark nature of the book, or all of the metaphors.  The other books on the the lists were definitely an entertaining selection though.  Not one I would necessarily read, but interesting to be aware of!

So, what can we really learn from these experiences?  I think that this really has to do with how readers connect with a book, and the type of audience each work draws.  Writing in the digital age gives authors an advantage, because people's opinions are out there and being heard, which makes it much easier to know what to write for a specific crowd.  People let us know what they think of things, what they'd like through mediums such as fan fiction, and can be the world's best, albeit harshest, editors.  All of these are extremely valuable for anyone wishing to be successful in the modern era of literature.