This was written by me in response to an assignment given in my Composition class; I hope you'll respond to it whether you agree or not.
Khalil A. Rahsheed
Gregory McCoy
Composition 1
13 January 2011
‘Heart of Darkness’ TD III
In Marlow’s case his quote is a bit of hypocrisy. Marlow is the main character in Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’. After a journey into the Congo and a stint as a steamboat captain, he returns to his native London and meets with the fiancée of an acquaintance (Kurtz) he had made in the Congo. He informs her of Kurtz’s final moments, but lies to her as to what Kurtz’s final words were. Here he’s describing his utter distaste for lying but his intention was obviously to spare the young lady any further grief over the death of her fiancée. So while he may be conflicted about lying he obviously felt that he had chosen the lesser of two evils; lie about Kurtz’s final words or further injure the feelings of the unfortunate fiancée.
As some of you may know ‘Heart of Darkness has inspired at least two movies that I am aware of. There was a version with the same title, which was an adaptation of the book starring John Malkovich; and ‘Apocalypse Now’ starring Martin Sheen. For whatever reason after reading the threaded discussion I was completely unable to get ‘Apocalypse Now’ out of my head. So when Mr. McCoy announced that we would critique a movie for our next essay, I had to hold back the laughter; even more than I usually have to. It’s that ‘synchronicity thing’ all over again. Significant coincidences are commonplace in my life.
Truth
Jane Tompkins is saying that the truth is subjective or perspectival as she puts it. I'm sure that most people will consider that idea absurd, believing that ultimate truth exists, but I am in complete agreement with her, our perspective or subjectivity creates our truth. Here let us consider some examples of how perspective forms our truth. Christopher Columbus is said to have discovered America. Christopher Columbus never set foot on the North or South American continents, he landed in the Caribbean thinking he was in India; and we've been calling the indigenous people Indians until recently; now deferring to Native Americans.
Lee Harvey Oswald was accused of being a lone gunman who assassinated President John F. Kennedy. How do we know this? Because the Warren commission appointed by President Johnson to investigate the assassination said so. I think you'd be 'hard pressed' to find anybody in America, or the world for that matter, who actually believes that Oswald acted alone. Whether we trust the Warren commission or our government is a matter of perspective. Anyone who fully trusts both would consider any other explanation as absurd; and would feel that the Warren commissions gave the world the truth. Obviously not everyone agreed with the commissions findings. A plethora of movies, books, and articles have since been produced which purport to completely refute the commissions findings. But, some of you are asking, there still has to be someone who knows what happened. There has to be ultimate truth. Lee Harvey Oswald claimed that he had been a 'patsy'. If he didn't know exactly what happened, didn't know the truth, who did?
I have members of my own family that still deny that evolution ever took place; or that dinosaurs ever really existed. No amount of books, magazine articles, documentary films or any other type of explanatory material, not even dinosaur bones or fossils is going to change their perspective, their truth. I again agree with Tompkins that not only is it old-fashioned but unrealistic to think that you can find the truth. Go on-line and type in any subject, and as you know you will get thousands of different answers to any given subject, all from a different perspective maintaining their own truth.