Conrad Essay Review

This year, i've been pleasently surprised with the improvement of my writing. I feel as though my sentences have been smoother and more complex than they were in the past, as well as my evidence when i decide to use it. When we did the hamlet essay, i feel as though i did a great job of taking scenes from two films and comparing them really well. My areas that i need to improve are getting my theses more complex and actually attempting to proofread before turning in my essays to remove choppy sentences and little gramar errors. As i move into college, i am prepared to turn in essays with the quality of writing i have now, especially if i choose to actually proofread them. Lastly, my reading has gotten faster, mostly because i have found interest in reading in general which keeps me more engaged in the books i pick up.

MINI Leaderless Discussion on Metamorphosis

I think the most intriguing discussion that took place was on the topic of Kafka's morale of the story. I believe, along with others in the group, that Kafka's novella is trying to criticize the belief that working yourself into no contact with the outside world can be extremely detrimental. Someone like Gregor clearly does not have much of a "life" outside of work and his family and that vary may well be a prevailing theme in Kafka's life and had if feel the need to satirize this method of living.

Kafka up to page 25

When Gregor is trapped in his room by his family who are clueless as to what step to take next, it is interesting to hear what happens around the house through Gregor's ears. He describes how his family is unwilling to stay at the house alone with him as a vermin, and how they are always in pairs to keep "safe". He also tells his story about their servant/maid who blesses the family for letting her go once Gregor is found in this current state.

Group dynamics in our second Socratic circle

The group dynamics of yesterday's Socratic were pretty constant for both groups. Both discussions were led by one person and 3 people dominated the discussion in each group with great insights from all people coming at one time or another. These socratics circles being out the best in our class discussions as they allow each student to say what they really feel and be led in discussion by their peers. Both times we have done this method of discussion I have been intrigued by people's views.

Third Body Parapragh

Both Conrad and Freud agree that society plays a major role in shaping and defining the instinctual nature of human beings and their ability to suppress such primitive instincts. As people began migrating towards civilizations, religion, and other structured institutions in society, the taboo acts proposed by Freud, such as incest, rape, etc., were suppressed over time due to their disgusting nature. By the early 1900s, when both men began laying their arguments in their respective fashions, life had become fairly attuned towards suppressing all those bad thoughts into what Freud calls the id. Because of this transformation in the human mindset and their acceptance of universal laws, Freud and Conrad were able to successfully develop theories about the human psychology. For instance, for hundreds and thousands of years, men were used to having polygamous relationships; however, by 1900, men were expected to have only one wife and it was taboo in most advanced societies to be polygamous. Both Conrad and Freud would argue that this taboo act became taboo because societies slowly developed the ideology of monogamous relationships and men were taught that polygamy was bad and subsequently forced any impulse to be with multiple women into his subconscious. This act relates to both beliefs by Conrad and Freud even though it is believed they did not discuss their findings and they chose completely different mediums of getting out their message. 

2nd Body Paragraph

While Conrad uses fiction to present his hypothesis on the instinctual nature of humans, Freud began conducting scientific experiments and publishing studies on the make-up of the human psyche. The culmination of Freud’s work on the human psyche is his idea that there are three subsets of a human’s conscience: the superego, ego, and id. Freud’s system helps explain Conrad’s belief through a scientific lens. Freud believes that babies instincts are animalistic and that as they grow up, they are taught to suppress their taboo impulses into their id. The id represents the subconscious thoughts that humans tend to not realize they have mostly because the societies they live in push them to suppress those thoughts. These thoughts include incest, rape, cannibalism, and other “wrong” actions. Freud would classify Kurtz as letting out his inner id after suppressing all of his deepest and darkest desires there for so long before he began trading ivory in the Congo. When given the opportunity to live without laws, his id was unleashed and eventually led to his death to a jungle illness which messed with his sanity. 

First Body Paragraph

As Marlow, the protagonist in Conrad’s novella, travels towards the heart of the Congo Jungle, he encounters and retells extremely disturbing actions taken by a group of cannibals as well as his very own crew mates who began the journey as proper Englishmen. Marlow’s job is to meet up with the ivory trading post run by Mr. Kurtz in the heart of the Congo Jungle. Kurtz is described as a “first-class agent” and “a very remarkable person” (Conrad 23). This perception of Kurtz exemplifies his good standing in the eyes of Marlow’s employers as well as his crew. It is clear through the text that Kurtz first entered the Jungle as an influential leader as well as a man full of class and honor. However, when Kurtz is finally met by Marlow, the reader begins the witness the slide of someone who has been sucked into the temptations of freedom and lawlessness. This decline of a prim and proper Englishman to reach the depths of giving into animalistic impulses greatly supports the belief that society has a profound impact on human actions. Conrad looks to create the contrast between a lawless Jungle atmosphere and the regulated English society. Conrad’s novella creates the hypothesis that men who are given are chance to roam free of the law will give in to their impulses that are normally repressed by the societies they grew up in. In addition, he discusses the way people who grew up in the lawless Jungle, the Cannibals, seem almost tame because they have learned to harness those impulses instead of letting them all come out at once the way Kurtz does. This hypothesis, which is not explicitly stated in the text, becomes the root of Conrad’s message; his belief that man’s natural instincts are feral and if not suppressed by the people and institutions in our lives will come to dominate our being. 

Intro Paragraph

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness was written at roughly the same time but with no relation to the psychoanalytic work published by Sigmund Freud at the turn of the 20th century. The beliefs of Conrad and Freud closely relate and delve into the depths of each person’s psyche, specifically the unconscious motives of the human mind. Conrad created a fictitious journey that follows his protagonist’s path down a river towards the dark depths of the Congo jungle where he is met with extremely primitive humans who greatly juxtapose the people who grew up with in his native England. On the contrary, Freud takes a strictly scientific route to hypothesize his belief that humans are born with animalistic instincts that are suppressed as one grows up by the societal expectations placed upon everyone.  While Conrad and Freud appear to have no influence on one another’s work, they began the search for beginning to understand the human psyche and the connection between a human’s taboo impulses and the way one is taught to repress those thoughts.