Heart of Darkness: Blog Response #2

Mark Twain once said, “There’s no such thing as an original idea. Every idea worth having has been had thousands of times already.” This seems to apply to literature as well. Many authors tend to use the same type of literary device in order to convey a message. An example would be the usage of fog as a symbol. Generally speaking, fog is used to represent obscurity and distortion -- not being able to see things clearly. This occurs in both One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey and Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.

When Marlow is on the streamer, he and his comrades encounter an endless amount of fog and mist. Especially since I just finished reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the usage of fog caught my eye immediately. In both of the novels, the fog is a symbol of confusion.

Chief Bromden is known for hiding himself in the fog produced by the fog machine. It’s a place where he can go completely insane because everything is unclear. It’s an escape from reality. In Heart of Darkness, as the streamer nears the heart of the indigenous country, morals, ethics, and humanity dissolves into this fog and every men is left consumed by the greedy nature to their task. The nature of war and authority clouds their minds of their goal and brought about this darkness and haze. However, to Marlow, the effect was a little different. This particular scene seems to be a turning point with Marlow. With all the fog around, the path to take was unclear; he was unable to determine if he was guiding the steamer into open water or danger. Like I mentioned before, fog generally symbolizes confusion, and just like Bromden, Marlow falls victim to this. Since Marlow's arrival, he has been confused and unsure - dealing from the treatment of the natives, cannibals and pilgrims - what originally seemed wrong, was now being justified as right; like his original perception of Kurtz. He believed him to be this awe-inspiring, self-creating legend, when in truth, he was insecure, insane, and immoral. The fog created was almost self-imposed because of Marlow's instability as a person. Had he been firm in his own beliefs and convictions on right and wrong he would not have faced such a conflicting situation with Kurtz, but because of this, he was able to become stronger and better for it.

         It is interesting to see how two completely different types of literary works share a connection through the same type of symbol. Fog. Just a simple use of this and the readers automatically know what the character is going through. Confusion, distortion, blindness.