As members of a civilized society, we are expected to behave with what we call restraint on a daily basis. It is what makes our society functional. Restraint is what keeps people from bludgeoning one another while walking down the street, or, on a smaller scale, keeps a dinner table clean as we eat with silverware as opposed to our hands. We function on a belief that our ability to exercise self-control is what separates us from uncivilized societies and animals. However, restraint can both be learned and lost. In his novel Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad exposes the counter-intuitive dichotomy between restraint and civilization.
The novel begins with the story of Fresleven, a boat captain who worked for the Company, whose death created the …show more content…
The pilgrims quickly panic when the natives attack and begin to fire their rifles indiscriminately; whereas, the cannibals, though they had run out of food and the hippo meat they had brought with them had rotted, resisted their natural instincts and did not eat any of the people on board the boat. Marlow is impressed with the natives’ ability to restrain themselves when facing extreme hunger. Marlow notices the restraint of the cannibals, “And these chaps, too, had no earthly reason for any kind of scruple. Restraint! I would just as soon have expected restraint from a hyena prowling amongst the corpses of the battlefield” (68). Marlow relates the cannibals to ‘hyenas’, drawing a stark contrast between them and the audience to which he is telling the story, illustrating his perception of the cannibals and the civilized people as opposites, yet, he is giving the cannibals recognition. Additionally, he addresses the cannibals as ‘chaps’, communicating to his audience that at this point in the story they are not, in fact, subhuman, though their predetermined opinions have led them to believe so. Though the cannibals have no reason to restrain themselves, living in chaos has taught them restraint, and has helped them to survive. In contrast, Marlow believes that the pilgrims …show more content…
Though people truly believe themselves to be civilized, it is the threat of the ‘policeman’ and the ‘gallows and lunatic asylums’ that prevent people from descending into insanity. When removed, these are replaced with ‘utter silence’ and ‘utter solitude,’ and without any ‘warning voice,’ humans are left to truly follow their own devices and their ‘own innate strength’. Having adapted to an environment such as this, the cannibals know true restraint and can survive civilly with others; however, Kurtz is transformed from a respected figure into a ‘hollow man’. At the conclusion of the novel, Marlow recognizes that although he still retains an incredible eloquence, there is truly nothing at its core, and the systems that we have put in place to make our society function more civilly have actually resulted in a decreased ability for humans to sustain internal