Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness Through a Freudian Lens Essay

Without personal access to authors, readers are left to themselves to interpret literature. This can become challenging with more difficult texts, such as Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness. Fortunately, literary audiences are not abandoned to flounder in pieces such as this; active readers may look through many different lenses to see possible meanings in a work. For example, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness may be deciphered with a post-colonial, feminist, or archetypal mindset, or analyzed with Freudian psycho-analytic theory. The latter two would effectively reveal the greater roles of Kurtz and Marlow as the id and the ego, respectively, and offer the opportunity to draw a conclusion about the work as a whole. Sigmund Freud’s theories on the construction of the mind are simple, but fundamentally changed the field of psychology. He proposed, among other things, that the human mind is composed of three parts: the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. The preconscious consists of information, such as a telephone number, that is â€Å"accessible to consciousness without emotional resistance† (Schellenberg 21). In Freud’s estimation, the unconscious is the most important area of the mind. The information stored within it has â€Å"very strong resistances† to becoming conscious (Freud 32). Residing in the unconscious is the id, which â€Å"contains everything†¦that is present at birth†¦ – above all, therefore, the instincts which originate from somatic organization† (14). From birth, all action is instinctual, from the id. The id recognizes and entertains no desires but its own and is impatient to have its needs met. This phase lasts until a part of the id changes â€Å"under the influence of the real external world† (14). This changed portion b... ...o, while the novella’s archetypal structure glorifies Marlow’s domination of Kurtz. These two analyses taken together provide a much fuller and more comprehensive interpretation of the work. Conrad presents the idea that there is some darkness within each person. The darkness is is inherited and instinctual, but because it is natural does not make it right. He celebrates – and thereby almost advises – the turn from instinct. By telling Marlow’s tale, Joseph Conrad stresses to his audience the importance of self-knowledge and the unnecessity of instinct in civilization. Works Cited Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. New York: Penguin Group, 1997. Freud, Sigmund. An Outline of Psycho-Analysis. Trans. James Strachey. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1949. Schellenberg, James A. Masters of Social Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness Through a Freudian Lens Essay Without personal access to authors, readers are left to themselves to interpret literature. This can become challenging with more difficult texts, such as Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness. Fortunately, literary audiences are not abandoned to flounder in pieces such as this; active readers may look through many different lenses to see possible meanings in a work. For example, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness may be deciphered with a post-colonial, feminist, or archetypal mindset, or analyzed with Freudian psycho-analytic theory. The latter two would effectively reveal the greater roles of Kurtz and Marlow as the id and the ego, respectively, and offer the opportunity to draw a conclusion about the work as a whole. Sigmund Freud’s theories on the construction of the mind are simple, but fundamentally changed the field of psychology. He proposed, among other things, that the human mind is composed of three parts: the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. The preconscious consists of information, such as a telephone number, that is â€Å"accessible to consciousness without emotional resistance† (Schellenberg 21). In Freud’s estimation, the unconscious is the most important area of the mind. The information stored within it has â€Å"very strong resistances† to becoming conscious (Freud 32). Residing in the unconscious is the id, which â€Å"contains everything†¦that is present at birth†¦ – above all, therefore, the instincts which originate from somatic organization† (14). From birth, all action is instinctual, from the id. The id recognizes and entertains no desires but its own and is impatient to have its needs met. This phase lasts until a part of the id changes â€Å"under the influence of the real external world† (14). This changed portion b... ...o, while the novella’s archetypal structure glorifies Marlow’s domination of Kurtz. These two analyses taken together provide a much fuller and more comprehensive interpretation of the work. Conrad presents the idea that there is some darkness within each person. The darkness is is inherited and instinctual, but because it is natural does not make it right. He celebrates – and thereby almost advises – the turn from instinct. By telling Marlow’s tale, Joseph Conrad stresses to his audience the importance of self-knowledge and the unnecessity of instinct in civilization. Works Cited Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. New York: Penguin Group, 1997. Freud, Sigmund. An Outline of Psycho-Analysis. Trans. James Strachey. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1949. Schellenberg, James A. Masters of Social Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.