Marlow. Marlow. Marlow.

When you want your point to stand there are different ways to be heard. You can shout it, or you can merely repeat it many times until it's left ringing in everyone's ears. Repetition is the key. To make constant emphasis on something can be annoying, but if it is annoying it means the point has been made, and everyone is feed up with that particular idea. That is exactly what Joseph Conrad does in a subtle way in Heart of Darkness.

We must take into account that this is a frame story. It isn't supposed to be novel, but rather a tale told casually to some friends in a boat waiting for the tide to rise. Apart from the fact that syntax is very different when we talk than when we write, our expressions are different too. Written expressions are different than oral expressions. Orally we tend to repeat the same thing various times when we get anxious or our emotions heightened. As the tone of voice changes, the feeling of monotony changes too, but when it's written we just don't picture the characters shouting the lines, but we rather calmly read them. It's different to give expression and emotion to a written work, than to an oral work. Marlow's repetitive narrative adds uneasiness to the flow of the novel. It could mean that Marlow is panting, and fidgeting while telling his story. While Marlow says there were "Trees, Trees, millions of trees, massive, immense, running up high" (Pg. 63), one could simply write "there were many trees" to make it less wordy. It sounds as if he were overwhelmed at the moment due to the recap of  his eventful journey, and not woried at all abour wordiness and being consice. 

When we believe something is important in our minds we tend to repeat it or mention it a lot as we are constantly thinking about it. We are quite aware that Marlow's experience had an emotional effect on him, and he most likely remembers the past with emotion and it is seen through his tone and diction. This ads intimacy and emotion to the tone of the novel, making it even more intriguing.  

The Inhumanity of Humans

Inhumanity is defined as the lack of pity or compassion. Its synonyms include words like savagery and brutality.  On the other hand, humanity is described as the quality or condition of being human, with synonyms like sympathy, tenderness and goodwill. I personally believe they are erroneous, and should be flipped. Humans are savages; they are discerned by their lack of condolence and empathy towards others and they seem to be incapable of sympathy or goodwill. But, why is it they are this way?

What is it that makes humans so greedy and so inhumane? Is it power or is it money? The abuse towards the black race seen in this novel is incredible. It is amazing how we humans which are supposed to be so humane, are so crude.  What Marlow describes as humans when he arrives to Africa was as follows: "They were dying slowly, it was very clear. They were no enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now, nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom...these moribund shapes were free as air-and nearly as thin." (pg. 28) These people who endure a terrible quality of life, who are deprived of their own rights and freedom are also left to die like this. Why are we so ungrateful? They were the people that gave us what we had. Without them we wouldn't have had all the luxuries we enjoyed on a daily basis. Our clothing, our food, they ivory from our pianos. It all came from work of them, each was carved by some pair of black hands in some corner of  africa, and we don't even acknowledge their existence. We treated them as if they were machines and animals, without any type of care. Instead of working to get what we wanted, we made them work for us without giving them anything in return. Not even some dignity. 

Greed makes us act this way. The belief that money and power will make us indestructible gives us that sense of supperiority. We feel we have the right to treat men like animals, like bodies without souls. We feel we have the power to to tie them up together and chain them up. To Beat them up and take everything away from them. It is shameful that things like this happened once upon a time. They, humans just like the rest of us, should've been treated like treasures, not like trash. 

Oh, The Irony...

"The Great Nations of Europe" Randy Newman

IRONIC EXAMPLES:

"He (Columbus) shook hands with some Indians and soon they all were dead."

• This is not literal, he rather is exagerating the situation because when the europeans arrived they came over with many diseases that caused the indian population to die due to the foreign diseases.

"Balboa found the Pacific, and on the trail one day, he met some friendly Indians whom the Church told him were gay, so he had them torn apart by dogs on religious grounds they say the great nations of Europe were quite holy in their way."

• The fact that he had the indians "torn apart" in religious grounds is not something very holy at all, it is rather disrespectful. The song exemplifies the truth about the view of Europeans, and mocks them by saying "they were quite holy in their way", which isn't very religious at all as they massacred people in holy grounds.

"On the horizon is the possibility that some bug from out of Africa might come for you and me destroying everything in its path"

•  The diseases brought by Europeans into America caused many people to die, and only those who survived were immune to them. The chances that a new "bug" comes from Africa and clears everything in its path, is highly unlikely. 

"The Great Nations of Europe"

• From how the song portrays the nations of Europe, they were not great at all. They might have been powerful but they swiped with them hundreds of cultures and populations of indians, forcing them to do hard and dirty work they refused to do. Turning indians into slaves is not "great" at all. 

NOT IRONIC EXAMPLES:

"Now they're gone, they're gone, they're really gone. You never seen anyone so gone."

• This in fact is true. The Europeans killed everything in their path, including thousands of indians and even leading to extinction different civilizations like the Mayans, Incas and Aztecs. 

"Some bones hidden in a canyon some paintings in a cave they're no use tryin to save them, there's nothin left to save."

• As well this isn't ironic because the europeans killed them all, and so there is nothing left for us to do than admire at the things they left behind as there is no one else left to save. All the natives were wiped out, and are all dead now. 

"There's pictures in a museum, some lines written in a book but you won't find a live one, no matter where you look."

• The europeans led to extinction different tribes of indians by massacring them and kidnapping them, so there are only what they have left behind to admire in museums, but you'll never find a living Aztec or Mayan alive. 

The Power of Power

Through out our lives we change, and we are never the same as we were before. Change is constant and it can never be stoped. Miss Ratched, McMurphy, Chief Bromden and Billy Bibbit are just examples of some people that we can see evolve through the story. But, what exactly makes them change? We believe we have absolute control of who we are, and what we choose to be, when in reality those with power model us, just like play-dough. Power is the reason behind our changes. 

When I talk about power it is not physical power, it's psychological. It is the kind of power that you cannot see, but the one that you can only feel. The unbalance of power McMurphy created when he initially arrived to the ward, is the cause for his own self to change. But, also he is the cause for nurse Ratched's change  in the end. Oppression from the big nurse shrinks him to a minuscule size. He retreats, and adjusts his behavior to that, that would please the big nurse. "The next day he surprised everybody on the wards by getting up early and polishing that latrine till it sparkled, and then went to work on the hall floors when the black boys asked him to." (Pg. 148) He does this things, because he knows she holds the power. She holds the power over him, and over his freedom. Her authority makes him change.

But, he, on the other hand, breaks her. He breaks her regime and power in the ward. After McMurphy, what she does isn't taken the same way as before, not with that same fear. He changed her, because he confronted her and rebelled her. Even after she deprived him from his own will, and basically killed him by authorizing the lobotomy operation, he had won. "She tried to get her ward back into shape, but it was difficult with McMurphy's presence still tromping up and down the hall...She couldn't rile with her old power anymore...She was losing her patients one after the other." (Pg. 277) 

Authority has the power to change people. Thats why it is used. "The Combine" as Chief Bromden calls society, uses power to mold us into shape. They take advantage of it to make us who they want us to be.  With power they fix their machines, or us, into perfection. Because that is what they want: Perfection in a machine world. However, there is always a gap. There is always a loophole, and here we find it. We found society's mistake. They never expected a McMurphy.