ERIC EJ1068441: Mortal Imperfection: The Revenge of the Social Animal in "Heart of Darkness" and "Moby Dick"

2014·0.49 MB·English

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MORTAL IMPERFECTION: THE REVENGE OF THE SOCIAL ANIMAL
IN ‘HEART OF DARKNESS’ AND ‘MOBY DICK’
By
SUMBAL MAQSOOD
Lecturer in English, Government College University, Lahore, Pakistan.
ABSTRACT
This paper seeks to explore and peek into the psychological hell of the so-called superior beings who, in their
megalomaniacal intentions make the world a difficult place to live for some groups based on ethnicity, culture, race,
religion, and other differences. It looks into the duplicity and double standards of people and the way they exploit a
privileged birthright to target and demean other groups exalting themselves as the preferred 'self' over the marginalized
'others'. The sham of superficial, social lifestyles is exposed as the web of morality and a politicized sense of right and
wrong is questioned. Power structures that uphold society are based on flimsy differentiations that utilize the principle of
'might is right' as a power hierarchy is established to subjugate and exploit the less-privileged and weaker groups on
Earth. This research challenges the subject-object duality and the veneer of civilization that is rampant in the modern
world and that views the world in a sharply divided vision of black and white, ignoring the grey shades where the question
of individuality, identity and personality arises-the potency of the beliefs of all beings cannot be neglected by imposing
labels of 'savages' and 'barbarians'. The act of imposition by the civilized world over primitive groups itself is an act of
savagery and this paper would be questioning why man is unwilling to come to terms with his 'other', the part that
completes him and defines him, and is an essential part of his evolving personality. The core of evil and primitivity is
ineradicable in every being and it is individuality that will control the behavior, not forcefully imposed social constructs.
There is a very thin line between what the civilized world calls 'normal' and what it labels as 'savage' as man was essentially
born as natural as the wilderness around him, his soul as unfettered as the soaring eagle. This untamed wilderness is
man's reality and when he tries to harness it, he transgresses upon values that are inevitably connected with his history, his
evolution, his concept of civilization and his superstructure of formal education. Is it really a civilizing, enlightening
mission of transforming brutes into human beings or making others as hypocritical and pretentious as the colonizing
powers are, at the expense of personal integrity?
Keywords: Beast, Civilization, Dualities, Colonization, Self-exploration.
INTRODUCTION Purpose
In this paper, the author intends to explore why man is so The sterile hypocrisy of humanity is like a blight eating away
bent upon destroying that hellish, instinctual, and violent at the very fibre of the cherished superficial beliefs and
aspect of his nature that binds him to the animal world. The ideals of the so-called civilized individuals. Variety,
social animal might have mastered innumerable versatility, and individuality is seen as a threat. An issue that
expeditions and explorations, but when it comes to troubles the contemporary scenario as well, is what with the
confronting a part of him that is essential to his identity, he worldwide competition between different nations and the
chooses to remain somewhat aloof and contemptuous of struggle for supremacy and where one nation seeks to set
that part and when given the opportunity, defies it with all his exemplary status in the panels of history through its
might in the fear of the ransacking of his so-called civilized improved and evolving practices. Everyone wants to reach
garb. In the light of this proposition, two canonical works of the perfection of Nietzsche's superman, but are they
Joseph Conrad and Herman Melville respectively, namely becoming mere archetypes and superficial machines in
‘Heart of Darkness’ and ‘Moby Dick’ were explored. the process with the destructive intention of mechanizing
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and standardizing everyone around them under the torch connection, “Heart of Darkness replaces the unknown with
of Enlightenment and Civilization? In order to answer these the unspeakable-instead of bringing light into darkness, it
queries, the texts of MD (Moby Dick) and HOD (Heat of uncovers darkness at the heart of the 'civilising' mission”
Darkness) were selected as they are very pertinent in their (508). The light/darkness duality can easily be swapped
motifs for catering to present day world issues. when the so-called dark and ignorant savages
demonstrate a belief in their latent light, fundamental rights
Main Argument and Substantiation
of survival and cherished credos and values. Melville's
The first aspect that would be analyzed is the beastly side of
savage harpooners on the ship, Pequod, demonstrates a
human beings that embarrass them and the one they
similar dignity and nobility in bearing despite cannibalistic
would like to eradicate with all its contingent menial
tendencies. The holier-than-thou attitude of the civilized
functions that link them with animals. A beast may be
nations in their blindness of facts, figures and statistics falls a
regarded as that 'other' of humanity that makes man flaunt
prey to generalizations and these generalizations are then
his veneer of civilization like a peacock and defy any
used as a weapon on lands they have no claim to
creature to equal his so-called progressive and urbane
squander away. In the light of this argument, Wagenknecht
charms. Even darker human races have been subjected to
has reflected on the personal voyages of Melville,
the racial 'otherness' that dehumanizes them and
“Melville did admire wholeheartedly the mental and
denigrates them to bestial standards. So much so that
physical health of the islanders, their excellent dispositions,
some races are accused of sheer cannibalism, a crime
and their freedom from the vices of civilization, but he saw
that renders assault on them as justified. As Gina Wisker
these things not as the spontaneous productions of
comments, “defining people as cannibals provides a
“nature,” but as the achievements of a social order which
moral justification for treating them as less than human”
they had made, and which was right for them” (61).
(16). The colonizer seizes at this heinous crime of gobbling
human flesh and asserts the right of colonizing such non- Melville particularly was of the view that religious grounds of
human cannibal tribes with missionary zeal. This justification the missionaries were merely imperialist tools to gain an
further accentuates the colonizing purpose by aligning the edge over lands rich in resources. Perhaps the natives were
sublime ideal of mental enlightenment in addition to more human than the invading rampages of rapacious
behavioural subjugation. However, Conrad in HOD, and apparently philanthropic crusaders. As Edinger
regards the cannibals in an appreciative light when showered his praises on the inhabitants of the Marquesas
Marlow, the narrator, is on board with cannibalistic natives islands whom Melville had visited, “The natives of the
numbering thirty as against five white missionaries; yet they Marquesas in many ways lived in the paradise state of
cease from attacking the minority group of the crew, which Adam before the Fall – before instinct and spirit were
makes Marlow wonder “Was it superstition, disgust, wrenched apart and turned into deadly enemies in the
patience, fear ---- or some kind of primitive honour?” (57). All human psyche” (10). The union of instinct and spirit only
these are essentially human characteristics and if the consummates a complete personality, and the
cannibals were showing restraint respecting their particular psychological complications that plague the human race
credo, then surely they can be regarded as more human today are an inevitable aftermath of cruel repression of
than the forces that were shamelessly and viciously self-expression. The worst of it was that theoretical and
attacking them. The gap of epoch communications looms religious ideals were leveled against these races strong in
large as hostility prevails on both sides, and both regard the instinct and that repugnance for the animal was
others as anomalies and supernatural aberrations. Signifiers consummated in garnering plundered resources, hence
and labels become ambivalent standards as the light of an exhibition of the higher animals' superior strategy at
civilization hides a darkness of ulterior motives designed to progression. The colonizers were in fact, using the
subjugate natural forces. Stephen Regan comments in this superficial concept of race as an imperialistic weapon to
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capture and subjugate, not only the bodies, but also the offering to this savage's little idol, and his ideal frock-coat
psyche and soul of the darker races to drill in them a sense just hides his shirt tails and prevents us from seeing his bare
of their own inferiority. However, one cannot limit the psyche posterior as he salaams, while his ethical silk hat sits
to morphological categories. Race is a deeper reality correctly over his brow the while” (155).
linked directly to every person's individuality, as “everyone is This again reminds us of Conrad's natives whisking their
thought to experience race as an identity that comes from posteriors like tails in HOD, “Black rags were wound round
deep within: that is, as a natural expression of one's their loins, and the short ends behind waggled to and fro
fundamental identity” (Malpas and Wake 128). like tails” (30). It seems ludicrous that instead of recognizing
Every being is born with a state that is unharnessed, lawless, the bond that unites us with them, they are looked upon as
and unbound by social constructs- civilization only comes the very presentations of an unbred animal world. Ironically,
later as something imperative to chain that wild, beastly, Conrad's narrator Marlow deciphers inkling of the bond with
free-flowing and limitless self. This beastly aspect of man is these beastly creatures, “No, they were not inhuman. Well,
potent with a dynamic energy that can be channeled to you know, that was the worst of it --- this suspicion of their not
achieve Maslow's self-actualization. For instance, in HOD, being inhuman” (51). This suspicion paramounts to a self-
Kurtz's intended appears like a hollow artificially knowledge that Kurtz had embraced but Marlow shrank
conditioned ragdoll when compared with the omnipotent back from it. Melville, however, allows his narrator Ishmael to
fertility and prospects of the native female anima. C.B.Cox realize the camaraderie that he shares with Queequeg,
has drawn an apt analogy to Conrad's depiction of Kurtz's “No more my splintered heart and maddened hand were
native woman and the European Intended, “If we turned against the wolfish world. This soothing savage had
compare this splendid savage with Kurtz's European redeemed it. There he sat, his very indifference speaking a
fiancée, his Intended, it may seem that we are setting side nature in which there lurked no civilized hypocrisies and
by side dynamic energy with sterile hypocrisy, life with bland deceits” (49). The world of the savages speaks
death” (Bloom 29). Kurtz's Intended, fashioned by the plainly, while the social animal is enraged at the plain and
principles of what is expected of a woman in behaviour, unblemished image of their very selves which is deemed a
resembles a costumed in-mourning puppet, while the weakness rather than a strength. Are the highly developed
awe-inspiring native woman, stretches her hands cerebral hemispheres of the human being merely
heavenwards, which reflects a totality of vision thwarted by indulged in learning acts of cunning to deceive and
the restricted standards of civilization. Just like the whale's plunder rather than developing a real candour of
greatness in MD is proved with it’s “pyramidical silence” accepting our instinctual side which is undeniably
(301), the mistress's greatness is expressed in her consonant contingent? Derogatory terms and practices are churned
silence with the wilderness. Empty vessels may make a lot of up to hide man's essential bestial nature as Herman Melville
noise, just like the white civilized man blowing his trumpet of comments in MD, “Cannibals? Who is not a cannibal?”
improvement and erudition, yet the true greatness lies in (262). The civilized man with his insatiable lust for power
the potency of silence, when words are not needed to harbours spiky fangs that qualifies him as a greater
flaunt the reality, which expresses itself spontaneously in a cannibal than the worst of the depraved.
natural pattern that cannot be evaded. Similarly, in MD, Denying the animal spirit in us is like denying a gift that
Queequeg the South Sea Islander, initially makes a very nature has bestowed upon us. Our heart and soul throb at
savage and hostile impression on Ishmael, almost as if he is one beat with nature. Herman Melville comments in his
a ferocious animal out of a zoo. D.H.Lawrence's witty novel, “O Nature, and O soul of man! How far beyond all
comment encapsulates this animal impression as, utterance are your linked analogies! Not the smallest atom
“There you are: you see Melville hugged in bed by a huge stirs or lives in matter, but has its cunning duplicate in mind”
tattooed South Sea Islander, and solemnly offering burnt (271). The essential design of every atom of matter has a
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universal implication and functioning, that enables the erects an illusion that ensures the false functioning of
natural cycle, however vicious, to go on invincibly. Such society and withdraws into the haven offered by the
forces are never repressed without being sublimated into a society's false pretences. This self-deception is a
more dangerous mould. For instance, Ishmael thinks psychological necessity both for the Homo sapiens milieu
somewhat like a racist in the chapter, “The Monkey-Rope” and for the Intended, as they are too frightened to confront
when he considers the African Queequeg to be the their own insanity. As C.B. Cox comments, “Kurtz is
“previous image” (279) of the whites and in this way degraded, exalted, tragic; Brussels is civilized, hypocritical,
demeans the value of the African ways and values rather dead” (Bloom 42). Like Kurtz, Ahab had also forsaken his
than acknowledging their integrity. The whale's ambergris better half, “that young girl-wife I wedded past fifty, and
and Congo's ivory become reality checks as the façade of sailed for Cape Horn the next day, leaving but one dent in
colonization crumbles down in the face of grotesque my marriage pillow – wife?” (464). The security they found
egotistical and imperial designs to subjugate through was not in their supposed soulmates, but by making
unharnessed power. The materialistic concerns override stalemates of society's empty demands and coming to
humanist interests as profiteering figures prominently. This is terms with their own dark and gruesome reality. The dark
illustrated by Stubb's remark in the chapter “The Castaway” bond with nature is illuminated in an epiphany of self-
that he makes to the little dark boy Pip, “a whale would sell reflection. Moby Dick is credited with a “malicious
for thirty times what you would, Pip, in Alabama” (359). This intelligence” (470) as if the wilderness harbours an
means thereby that the human being becomes a “inscrutable intention” (Murfin 49). The design is universal
commodity himself and as soon as Kurtz becomes and Ahab and Kurtz are artists in the sense that they hover
aberrant in behavior and detrimental to the expansionist along its multitudinous folds and whirls, participating not for
purpose of civilization garb, he is to be reclaimed as a commercial success, but to comprehend the
useless bolt of the colonizing machinery. Kurtz's self- masterpiece that is the universe itself.
realization is incomprehensible to the well-bound world of We come to the social pillar of colonization in the name of
definitions and limits. Melville remarks in MD, “So man's civilization itself. The European nations with their superior
insanity is heaven's sense; and wandering from all mortal economy and powerful weapons were in a propitious
reason, man comes at last to that celestial thought, which,
position to impose their hegemony over their helpless
to reason, is absurd and frantic” (360). Ahab and Kurtz have
others. The superficial external marker of the white skin
reached a wavelength that is reason's insanity but of such
posited them as assumers of an innate superiority while true
profound potency, that mortal man with all his superficial
identity is something that originates from the latent
limitations cannot grasp its essence. Ahab tries to convey
personality. The mutual sense of alienation and
his vision to his crew but they fail to understand. He
defamiliarization surfaces when the intruders feel
categorically declares, “The firm tower, that is Ahab; the
dislocated in a foreign land whose values and ideals of
volcano that is Ahab; the courageous, the undaunted, and
intellectual and moral development might vary from their
victorious fowl, that, too, is Ahab; all are Ahab” (373). In
own, while the natives feel overwhelmed by an invading
other words, Ahab's vision becomes synonymous with the
power with ruthlessly destructive weapons. Darwin's model
universal reality behind matter and creation itself. of man's evolution from the ape further unwittingly justified
Generally, man would shun it and be ashamed of the the white man's claim of moving from barbarity to
naked enormity that is a part of his constitution. civilization. To embellish this ideal, the white man worships
Nevertheless he feels secure behind the erected pillars of superficial constructs that elevates him to an artificial
society rather than assuming responsibility and recognition pedestal, while tribes with hunched postures and primitive
for his essential dark self. Kurtz makes a choice of dances ironically justify their denigration and link with the
nightmares, and Marlowe is overwhelmed by his honest ancestral ape. C.B.Cox asks an important question about
choice, and yet when he lies to Kurtz's Intended, he re- Conrad's narrator Marlow, “Is wilderness the primary reality,
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and Marlow's occupation on the steamboat merely an apt cry can be quoted here, “fair is foul and foul is fair.”
artificial fiction which conceals the truth from him?” (Bloom Conrad viewed the annexing powers as “neither grand nor
33). Melville's protagonist Ahab's monomania is a threat to progressive but as absurd” (Stape 184). This is an immensely
the integrity of an entire race that seeks to vanquish what it valid perspective because when one can't tolerate the
cannot understand by set parameters, standards and ugly mirror image, one seeks to shatter that visage which
ideals. This imposition of a will of definitions is a violation of appears absurd, repulsive and purposeless, but the roots of
fundamental rights. However, colonizers forget that the our constitution cannot be wrenched out of our beings.
teeming streams of nature when suppressed would lead to Just observe one in a state of sheer anger when the last
destructive consequences, while the fecund individuals like trace of restraint is gone, and the individual becomes very
Melville's Queequeg, who befriend this spirit of nature, capable of inflicting harm on anyone in close proximity.
explore its utmost potentials. Edinger speaks of Queequeg Westerners' intolerance of their own bestial nature's
as “a piece of primeval nature itself, a personification of the existence reached its peak when they sought vent in acts of
original whole man at home with nature and himself” (27). the vicious dimension of wrath and revenge against their
In other words, blocking this natural spout would be
weaker others. Western notions of identity were
clogging and distorting of one's utmost capacity for self-
compellingly perpetuated by the white races in the
actualization.
process of domesticating their racial others. The cultural,
We must not forget that colonization leads to an inevitable religious, and intellectual achievements of the local and
postcolonial response. Postcolonialism roughly dates back indigenous people were undermined solely because of
to the American Revolution in the late eighteenth century. their inferior progress in arms and weapons, not because
According to Gregory Castle, “Postcolonial refers to the they were less human than their white counterparts. Any
unpresentable in the colonial: racial difference, legal attempt to repel this invading body was regarded as an
inequality, subalternity, all of the submerged and exhibition of sheer brute force rather than an attempt at
suppressed contradictions within the colonial social order defence. Frantz Fanon considered that these races
itself” (135). The intensified decolonization of the imperialist needed to assert their rightful demands for claiming their
factors was brought about by the suppressed and lands and culture which was a kind of “coherent,
marginalized elements that were denied a right to express enlightened action of men and women” (204). It was
themselves and question their subjugation on their own necessary to establish an identity on the International
lands. This hushing up of the assumedly inferior races domain, other than that of the subjugated slave.
reflected upon the primal threat incorporated in the sign Establishment of identity lay in dynamic revolutions with
language and cipher of the tribes that challenged the well- purposeful criteria incorporated in arts and politics. Fanon
organized and instrumental social construct of the defined regarded this constructive step as the “moving
and labeled domain of the language of the colonizers, consciousness of the whole of the people” (204) that made
who through artful ingratiation and rhetoric, sought to them aware of their usurped rights and gave a direction to
brainwash the natives of the invaded lands. Race is taken their emancipatory actions. Working at cross purposes
as the basic constituent of one's fundamental identity, but withFannon, Benjamin Kidd in his The Control of the Tropics
what is race except a measurement of the degree of went so far as to advise the white imperialists to restrain their
pigmentation of one's skin and then associating that operations in the primitive tribes, not on account of
darkness with the darkness of ignorance. In actuality, humanity, but on account of expressing concern for the
darkness pervaded in the very core of the presumably purity and exaltation of the more evolved races that might
civilizing forces in the form of manipulation of local be contaminated. Marginalization and cultural arrogance
resources and disparaging the beauty of the invaded lead to the silence of the other, but that silence itself is
lands, thereby manifestly demonstrating the bestiality of threatening, foreboding muteness before a storm. Kurtz's
the colonizing individuals themselves. Macbeth's witches' wild mistress in the Belgian Congo seldom speaks anything
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except inarticulate cries, but her gesture of reaching out The whaling industry parallels European and American
swiftly towards the sky with her bare arms is representative of territorial expansion, and in such mechanized and
the wilderness's “tenebrous and passionate soul” (Murfin 76) stereotypical missions, only the minds at par with the true
that is like a latent giant pondering upon the overriding human element can confront the reality of the superficial
possibilities. The whale Moby Dick is like that latent giant. If human endeavors. Countries like Britain itself were barbaric
language becomes a virus because it's a colonizer and savage during the Roman reign, and the colonizing
(Bennett and Royle 215), initially Ahab becomes the ruthless powers that such countries became later were simply an
colonizer of Moby Dick's world and justifies his edifying excuse for revenge against the primal roots that they
mission of vanquishing the whale by piling “upon the shared with these savages in order to remove the bane
whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and and legacy that mocked their civil attitude at all times. No
hate felt by his whole race from Adam down” (160) and of matter how much of a teetotaler a person is, he has the
course, the priceless ambergris. Similarly, Kurtz initial capacity to be intoxicated like a drunkard and tempted like
enterprise is to secure the ivory and to identify how savage Adam. To err is human, but defining errors is a tricky
and barbarous the local brutes are who can be reformed business. One man's sanity is another man's hardcore
only by the use of force. Both are claimed by the nature's lunacy. Education is one of the superstructures and
wilderness when their attempt to communicate is important element of the various paraphernalia that the
successful. Again, the rage and hate against creatures colonizers employed in order to maneuver the thinking of
who dare to defy the white man's harpoon and whip for that the colonized towards methodical and subtle subjugation.
matter are bound to catapult helplessly. In Melville, we see Religion is another institution that serves to invest naïve
the oceanic world being colonized by Ahab's ship Pequod. minds with a dose of fatalism that steers believers towards a
Ambergris is the white man's ivories in this case, the blue path of passive acceptance of injustice and hypocrisy as a
depths are being exploited in the name of whaling, and built-in ingredient of fate. If primitivity is the thriving of
Ahab seeks revenge from Moby Dick, the white whale. His essential human fertility and instinct, colonization serves
mind is infected with the monomaniacal virus of destroying to mechanize and dehumanize, refusing to recognize in
this monster with negative attributes of “great ferocity, the African life, a blood pact with the colonizers
cunning, and malice” (155) and he justifies his attack by themselves.
imbuing Moby Dick with superhuman strength and
This blood pact was an instinctual and primordial bond that
destruction that needs to be countered at all costs. Kurtz
delineated the chain of human generations. Instinct in the
seeks to exhibit skulls of exterminated brutes who dared to
pure form was nothing but a grave threat to the artificial
defy the presuming dominion. Both are destined to reach
veneer of civilizations whose roots sprung from a primal
an indisputable truth about nature.
allegiance with instinct itself. Religion and science became
Colonizers forcefully impose their codes of conduct and important tools for curbing the primal instincts and
rules on a foreign land without first indulging in the exercising restraint, in other words, harnessing the animal
exploration and comprehension of the pre-existent codes that rages in the blood of every human being. Religion and
and ethics of the natives living there. This colonial science justify the allegation of 'white man's burden' by
communication gap results in havoc for not only the placing on him an obligation of being the superior of
natives, but the infrastructure of the superficial constructs of creation and of possessing the exclusive physiological
invading forces as well. feature of highly developed cerebral hemispheres.
Language itself is a social construct and unfortunately, the Conrad, in an 1897 letter, categorically commented on
animal world does not have to resort to the human way of humankind’s painful consciousness of this animalistic and
communication. Hence, a similar communication gap bestial tendency within themselves that led them towards a
exists between the Homo sapiens and other existent fauna. bloody rebellion and consequent tragic aftermath:
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What makes humanity tragic is not that they are the victims denial of primitivity. Ahab comes to a similar realization
of nature, it is that they are conscious of it. To be part of the towards the end of MD. He realizes that what he is grappling
animal kingdom under the conditions of this earth is very with is seeds of his own destruction as Starbuck rightly
well, but soon as you know of your slavery, the pain, the declares, “See! Moby Dick seeks thee not. It is thou, thou,
anger, the strife, the tragedy begins.2 that madly seekest him!” (488). His madness finds a
A denial of the inherent instinct incorporated in the human meaning when he acknowledges his defeat in front of the
constitution is an open invitation to destruction. Lawrence invincible reality of the “all-destroying but unconquering
refers to Moby Dick as “the deepest blood-being of the whale” and identifies the universal bond that cannot be so
white race; he is our deepest blood-nature” (169). insolently terminated when he orates, “Sink all coffins and all
Something that is a part of our blood, like the white blood hearses to one common pool!” (492). The pool of origin
cells themselves, is an integral part, and any attempt to and demise is the same, but civilized man in his hubris
eliminate this part would lead to a weakening of the human strives to rise above the grasping tentacles of the pool and
infrastructure, just as the so-called brutal instincts of the defeat this instinctive bond with nature, but this hidden and
repressed bond is bound to surface, wrecking a havoc-like
blacks were ingrained in the very essence of the white man.
whirlpool whenever the bond is disturbed. No wonder
Thus we have Kurtz's moment of epiphany towards his
Freud's unconscious consists of mostly repressed desires of
demise when he cries out, “The horror, the horror!” (Murfin
the id, whose latent energy can be tapped efficiently, but
85). This moment of illumination sheds light on the blood
the social animal is extremely conscious and ashamed of
pact with the primitive that we have installed in our beings,
this fundamental reality. As C.B.Cox says about Kurtz who
and any attempt or gruesome mission to subjugate this
“releases his id from European restraint; he is a pioneer in a
essential wildness of nature would result in a sense of
psychic wilderness” (Bloom 40). Initially the slave of
alienation and meaninglessness that surface in the form of
practical requirements of colonization, Kurtz rises to
Kurtz's apparent madness. In actuality, he had accepted
comprehension of his personality by understanding the
the wilderness's claim over him, and recognized the bond
that could not be severed. Kurtz, the emissary of science laws that governed his being. He is reduced to the level of
and propagator of the civilization ideals, was so creatures that crawl on all fours, but he is never ashamed of
overwhelmed with the latent potential and the it. Ahab is never ashamed of competing with the allegedly
enlightening influence of primitivity that, as an act of instinctual power of Moby Dick. Perhaps his perception
desperation he renounced the philanthropic ideology of reached beyond the limits of ordinary prescribed realities.
the “International Society for the Suppression of Savage Edinger professes, “Light is a kind of poison to darkness;
Customs” (Murfin 65) to an anguished cry of 'Exterminate all consciousness by descending into the unconscious can
the brutes!' (Murfin 66). This was a drowning man's transform it from within. This can happen, however, only
desperate resort as Kurtz drowned in the ocean of self- when the conscious attitude is a heroic one and the ego
descends into the unconscious purposefully” (38). Both
discovery and the earliest beginnings of civilization were
Kurtz and Ahab are heroic characters and descend into
found trenchant in the heart of the assumedly most
their unconscious psyche. In fact, Ahab fomented by his
enlightened intellectual. Kurtz's mental territory had been
monomaniacal desire of killing Moby Dick carries out the
remapped and colonised. But Kurtz rises in esteem simply
symbolic act of lowering his boat on the treacherous waters
because he becomes conscious of his own reality.
to indulge in the whale hunt. Symbolically interpreted, it can
Macbeth's overreaching ambition claims him a victim in
be taken as Ahab's descent into the whirlpool of his
much the same way as Kurtz and Ahab are claimed victims
unconscious and to make sense of the overriding sense of
of their over-reaching ambition to impose their will over
malice and revenge against the animal that plagues his
nature; the consequences will hardly spare them. The
earlier generations may be murdered, but the gory heart. The colonizers, apparent mission was to civilize and
consequences are the curse resulting from civilization's domesticate the brutes of Africa by giving them an
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analogy to Darwin's apes, but their arrogant and holier- other words, nature could not always be taken for granted
than-thou attitude showed disgust rather than a genuine as a grand design was working behind it, and that grand
concern for the colonized natives' development. Bennett design had cunning and intellectual acumen for
and Royle make a pertinent comment, “There is a perpetuation. For Ahab, Moby Dick was “outrageous
fundamental ambivalence in the act of colonial strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it” (143). That
appropriation: the colonizer at once desires and fears that inscrutable malice was what Ahab wanted to scrutinize,
the colonized be like him (or, less frequently, her)” (220). The decode, and avenge.
white colonizer secretly wishes for the imitation failure of his If the presumably inferior races are subhuman and
subjects, which would serve to establish his supremacy for incapable of reasoning, they need looking after, and the
times immemorial and give him a right to interfere in the whites assumed that uncalled-for responsibility in the name
suppressed lands' affairs. The imperial and colonial of sheer good will, humanity, and domestication. Frantz
enterprise is certainly well improvised. The initial impression Fanon incisively discusses the matter in these words, the
of Melville's narrator Ishmael about Queequeg was matter where the derogatory nigger "is the corrosive
influenced by prejudiced notions of negro savages and
element, destroying all that comes near him; he is the
even led him to think that Queequeg could be a “pedlar of
deforming element, disfiguring all that has to do with
heads too – perhaps the heads of his own brothers” (25). In
beauty and morality" (41). In other words, he is that wild and
much, the same way as the word Taliban would be
untamed tide of nature that must be harnessed at any
equated with terrorists nowadays. The proprietor of the
destructive cost. Graham in his article, “Bloody Niggers”,
spouter-inn rightly retorts to Ishmael's fear: “Better sleep with
doubly emphasized the point when he regarded niggers
a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian” (27). Later, the
as a polluting factor for the Chosen seed, which makes it a
simple and honest soul of Queequeg touches him with the
moral obligation to obliterate them in a permissible act of
tangibility of a pure crystal and he decides: “I'll try a pagan
genocide. He believes that niggers should have no rights
friend, thought I, since Christian kindness has proved but
precisely because of the fact that they would manipulate
hollow courtesy” (49). The sea in MD and the wilderness in those rights for destructive intent. Crain remarks of Melville's
HOD represent the independence of the soul of creation. narrator, “Ishmael's first identifications of Queequeg are
The soul thrives in its pure form but bodily covetous fallen categories, words defined negatively by how they fail
constructs taint the supremacy of the soul's perfection. to reach the standard of sober and pacific white Christian”
Melville says in MD, (46). A man bound in the fallen category is culpable for the
“Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable original sin and cannot be exonerated. The punishment
truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort meted out to such a man is considered justified. Such men
of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; are considered a threat to the restrained model glorified by
while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to almost all the religions of the world. However, why is it so
cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore?” (95). dangerously singular on the side of the white man to ignore
In other words, religion and rapacious materialism rob the codes and conducts that these other races nurture on
nature of its beauty of instinct, spontaneity, and balance. their behalf, the one that gives them a code so strong that
When Starbuck rebukes Ahab for risking their lives for the even hungry cannibals can restrain their ravaging
purpose of vengeance from a “dumb brute” who had appetites? Most books are cultural and patriarchal
attacked Ahab with the “blindest instinct” (143), Ahab products, but Melville and Conrad have shown how
reveals the layers of the working of nature, “in each event – revolutionary a book can get.
in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some The traditional dualities become reversible ones in Melville
unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of and Conrad. The signifier and signified undergo a continual
its features from behind the unreasoning mask” (143). In slippage. For instance, the blackness associated with evil
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ARTICLES
and malice in the Dark Continent becomes the darkness of addressing God thus: “Oh, thou big white God aloft there
the white people's corrupt tactics, while the whiteness of the somewhere in yon darkness, have mercy on this small black
whale is alluded to as encompassing a malice and dark boy down here; preserve him from all men that have no
intent that needs to be destroyed at all costs. Both bowels to feel fear!” (154). The God who created both white
viewpoints oscillate in narrow dimensions and harbour and black in the universal designs inevitably gave them a
limited perspectives that turn the gluttonous table of right to formulate their own codes of conduct and
human hubris. Lawrence perpetuates a universal legislature. As Melville further comments, “all deified Nature
significance of this viscosity between white and black absolutely paints like the harlot, whose allurements cover
duality, “Melville keeps up his disquisition about 'whiteness'. nothing but the charnel-house within” (170). Nature is
The great abstract fascinated him. The abstract where we complicated and to harness it with defined civilization and
end, and cease to be. White or black. Our white abstract superficial progress is to limit its potential and insult its depth.
end!” (160). Moretti comments on the limited stance of Whoever confronts this depth is charged with madness and
Ahab, the seeker of vengeance from his animalistic nonconformity. Melville who himself had a personal
alterego, as, “His world is a closed and narrow one: made encounter with whales gave an apt comment on their
up of a single creature, in whose whiteness all the colours of mental capability as “guided by some infallible instinct –
the universe are concentrated — and vanish” (61). Truth is say, rather, secret intelligence from the Deity—mostly swim
slippery, and it would be a vain attempt to grasp it with in veins, as they are called;” (173). This infallible instinct,
finality. Therefore, definitions and ideologies fail to fathom secret intelligence and perfect aim incited Ahab to
the depth of possibilities and potentials. It is because they eulogize Moby Dick as a worthy adversary. Writers like Oscar
are merely means of utility and wielding power, instruments Wilde also condemn a view of the world strictly divided into
to control not only society but also the natural world, and binaries. In Oscar Wilde's novella, The Picture of Dorian
warfare is a contingent utility, which serves to further these Gray, Lord Henry makes an apt commentary on the
devious ends. The blacks who were considered to be the essence of human beings, “I wonder who it was defined
“white man's burden”3 suffered immoral atrocities at the man as a rational animal. It was the most premature
hands of the quest for colonial domination veiled in selfish definition ever given. Man is many things, but he is not
ambition. Melville questions even the whiteness and purity rational” (154). Man might be an animal, but to affix reason
of Christianity. Bildad, the bible-reading, self-righteous man and rationality with him would be a rigid folly. Later, the
feels no compunction in robbing Ishmael of his fair wages, omniscient narrator of the novella reflects on the reversibility
while speaking verbose and pompous declarations of of animalism and spirituality,
Christian belief. Queequeg, the savage on the other hand, “Soul and body, body and soul – how mysterious they were!
demonstrates restraint and essential human kindness as There was animalism in the soul, and the body had its
Edinger points out: “This association of cruelty and evil with moments of spirituality. The senses could refine, and the
rigid, orthodox Christianity and of natural kindness with the
intellect could degrade. Who could say where the fleshly
non-Christian is a recurrent theme in Melville” (43). Conrad
impulse ceased, or the psychical impulse began? How
likewise points out the fickleness of Christian missionaries in
shallow were the arbitrary definitions of ordinary
his works like HOD. The Spanish Sailor on board the Pequod
psychologists! And yet how difficult to decide between the
speaks denigratingly of the Negro Daggoo's race, “thy race
claims of various schools!” (179).
is the undeniable dark side of mankind – devilish dark at
The pillars of society had definitely failed to provide a
that. No offence” (153). That is right. First, subjugate the race
perfect comprehension and equilibrium to the human
to mockery and ridicule, and then manipulate words to
system precisely because of denial of certain inevitable
justify your civilization by inviting no offence. The trump card
characteristics of human nature. The body and soul
is simply diplomatic acumen to gain domination. Pip the
principles were overlapping, and perhaps, a complete,
black boy also questions such hardcore racism by
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ARTICLES
fulfilled individual was a balanced amalgam of both. is because the hideous face of Shakespeare's Caliban is
Shallow and rigid delineations of natural functioning were too much to face with temerity. No wonder at Kurtz's horrific
liable to have a loose infrastructure that could collapse in recognition at the time of his demise that reflects Jung's
the face of resurging sublimated desires and innate urges. belief as explored by Spivack, “although it is quite within the
In fact, whiteness depicts a poignant lack of meaning as bounds of possibility for a man to recognize the relative evil
too much can overwhelm the eyes with a blinding impact of his nature, it is a rare and shattering experience for him to
that confounds that scientifically trained senses. Whether gaze into the face of evil” (Spivack 432). This shattering
the white whale is an allegorical embodiment of an experience is what the world would later label as lunacy.
obsolete God or the profitable commodity like territorial Richard Hughs puts in a word for Jungian insight, “from the
hegemony, it presents a blinding and formidable riddle in same root that produces wild, untamed, blind instinct there
its silence and omnipotent caliber. The white albino whale grow up the natural laws and cultural forms that tame and
Moby Dick can run adjacent to evil, reflecting upon the break its pristine power. However, when the animal in us is
destructive aspects of nature that are inevitably imbibed in split off from consciousness by being repressed, it may
it along with good; just as Blake rightly identified both good easily burst out in full force, quite unregulated and
and evil in the Creator's design. Yeats' concept of gyres is uncontrolled. An outburst of this sort always ends in
equally applicable here where the period of construction is catastrophe -- the animal destroys itself” (21). Such an
eventually overlapped and overshadowed by an omnipotent subconscious force needs a matching
apocalyptic period of destruction. Edward Edinger courage and receiving capacity, which is always at
stipulates, “Imagination and creativity are apt to seem daggers drawn with society's merciless thwarting.
Satanic, since in their very nature, they transcend the Nevertheless, it is a visionary journey that leads to self-
separation of the opposites” (118). Art goes beyond good revelation and confrontation with the potential hell within
and evil, therefore artists like Ahab and Kurtz appear to be each individual, which he is taught to despise through
evil because they have dissolved the Christian dissociation social conditioning. Recognizing yourself as an individual
of good and evil and dared to transgress the bounds of rather than a puppet is an illumination that helps in
normalcy to explore forbidden horizons. Ahab's reiterated differentiating and classifying of knowledge that is far
dream of hearses signifies “the imminent death of some superior to artificial constructs of conditioned learning.
part of the personality, an old attitude” (Edinger 121). It is Ahab and Kurtz are the protagonists who are lucky enough
Ahab's journey towards developing the attitude he both to confront the horror. For Ahab, the sperm whale becomes
desires and fears. Ironically, it is not the supernatural white the symbol of the possibility of accomplishing utmost
being Kurtz that ensnares the natives, but a fellow being human authority and absolute control. If the sperm whale is
who adapted to the ways of the wilderness and the blood subjugated, an unfathomable power is to be attained. For
beating in his veins was a witness to his native connection. Kurtz, the wilderness and its inhabitants represent a similar
The heart of darkness that is latent in every pawn of
potential for power realization. Through his lofty ideals and
humanity is flooded by the superficial veneer of civilization,
training, he sought to impart an aesthetic education to
but blinding floods are misguiding and destructive, not
these racial others, but the language of the wilderness was
enlightening. Charlotte Spivack's exploration of Jung's
a bigger adversary than he had bargained for. He
concept of the personality's dark side or shadow can aptly
gradually evolved a hybrid identity, as he was overcome by
be related here: “One of the archetypes of the collective
the myriad possibilities of the wilderness and the limited and
unconscious is what Jung calls the shadow, the innate
confined perspective of his brought up; the company was
propensity for evil resident in the depths of human nature,
unable to cope with the plethora of images and abstract
“the negative side of the personality,” as Jung puts it, “the
ideas that nature has in its clutches. Melville declares in MD,
sum of all those unpleasant qualities we like to hide” (429), “Long exile from Christendom and civilization inevitably
and the precise reason that we want to hide these qualities restores a man to that condition in which God placed him,
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