Modern Men’s Narcissistic Syndrome in
Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” and James Joyce’s “The Dead”
Modernism puts its foremost trust and emphasis in men, potentiating narcissism. With Nietzche’s proclamation that “God is dead,” the modernists live for the acquisition/preservation of earthly glory, as opposed to entrance into heaven. In place of old, familiar belief systems, modernists are inundated by contradictory, provocative, and complex new ideas. In fact, Nietzsche, in Will to Power, lays out a formula for an ideal modern-man which conflicts with the age-old, Christian belief, overtly advocating egocentric, primordial instincts: “the love of power is the demon of men. Let them have everything and they [will be]…happy – as happy as men and demons can be” (Nietzsche 397). However, modern men’s new intense emphasis on self-gratification, that defies old morals, subjects their minds to perpetual restlessness, disorientation, and fragmentation. In fact, Nietzsche, in Will to Power, admits that “disintegration characterizes this time.” In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and James Joyce’s “The Dead,” the two modern protagonists, Kurtz and Gabriel respectively, struggle for worldly excellence and glory. However, by completely subscribing to dubious modern ideologies, namely colonialism and universalism, their minds disintegrate and their spirits paralyze, crippling their ability to feel love except for themselves.
Both Kurtz and Gabriel are archetypal, exceptional men of the modern world with extraordinary intelligence and eloquence. For instance, Kurtz, according to those who know him is so eloquent that people “who ha[s] heard him speak once” (74) becomes “his friend” (74). The Russian sailor tells Marlowe that he will “never, never meet such a man again” (63). He continues: “You ought to have heard him recite poetry – his own too it was, he told me. Poetry!… Oh, he enlarged my mind!” (63). In fact, because Kurtz can linguistically “take care” (67) of the evil motives into a “right motives” (67), he attains an honorable job: The International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs “entrust[s] him with the making of a report for its future guidance” (50). This suggests that Kurtz’s words, spoken or written, have power.
However, if Kurtz’s gift of tongue helps him advance in his career, the same talent also weakens his intimacy with his fiancé. His Intended (his fiancé) tells Marlowe that although “others knew” (75) of Kurtz’s “vast plans” (75), she “could not…understand” (75) his abstract ideas. Obviously, to Kurtz, it is not important that his Intended understands his “vast plans” (75), otherwise he would have made it plain to her. While he shows no interest in augmenting his intimacy by having his partner’s mind in union with him, he shows excessive anxiety over his “pamphlet” (51) that is bound to help him advance in his career. Even in his dying moments, Kurtz asks Marlowe to “take good care of ‘[his] pamphlet’…as it was sure to have in the future a good influence upon his career” (51). Furthermore, Kurtz’s litany of “elevated sentiments” (67) – “My Ivory, my Intended, my station, my career, [and] my ideas” (49) – shows his primeval, human greed and egocentrism. Interestingly, his second sentiment, the epithet “My Intended” (49), not only linguistically suspends his fiancé in the air, but also becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when his “intentions” to marry her never materialize. Moreover, the fact that his first sentiment is “ivory,” not “his Intended,” symbolically parallels his priority, that to him, human intimacy is an excess and that an object “ivory” is the foremost passion.
Like Kurtz, the fact that Gabriel is a writer evinces in his linguistic mastery. Gabriel, like Kurtz, is obsessed with his literary career: “he love[s] to feel the covers and turn over the pages of [his] newly printed books” (128). As a man of accomplishment and “superior education” (122), he is asked to give a speech at the party. In his intellectual arrogance, he fusses over “the lines from Robert Browning, for he fear[s] they would be above the heads of his hearers” (121). Indeed, his speech is not understood by all. Just as Kurtz’s Intended is not able to decipher what Kurtz’s “vast plans” (75) are, Gabriel’s high-sounding words, to his aunts, are nothing but emotion-fillers that puts a “large smile on Aunt Julia’s face and…tears…[in] Aunt Kate’s eyes” (139). Though his Aunt Julia, “d[oes] not understand” (139) his speech, out of courtesy, “she look[s] up, smiling, at Gabriel, who continue[s] in the same vein” (139). Furthermore, the fact that he uses the possessive “I” fourteen times in his brief speech shows that he, like Kurtz, is an egotist, who is more interested in gratifying himself with the speech than his audience. Indeed, he does not worry that the meaning of the theatrical oration he delivers is not understood by “two ignorant old women” (his Aunts) (130). Just as Kurtz’s ideological rhetoric alienates him from his Intended, Gabriel’s abstract words, printed or spoken, distances him from his people.
Moreover, Gabriel’s words, like Kurtz, are foreboding. Just as Kurtz’s epithet, “My Intented” (67), encapsulates the unrequital nature of their intimacy, Gabriel’s act of naming his wife’s elegiac moment of her dead lover, Michael Furry, as a “Distant Music” epitomizes the distant and dissonant nature of his marriage. While Gretta listens to the singing, Gabriel studies her and wonders – “[w]hat is a woman standing on the stairs in the shadow, listening to distant music, a symbol of ?” (143) – then in his mind, he mutely names it “Distant Music” (143), because that is what “he would call the picture if he were a painter” (143). Henceforth, he discovers that it is Michael Furry, not him, who is alive in Gretta’s heart. He is thus symbolically reduced to death in her mind, spiritually distanced from her. His wife has not loved him, but Michael, who died for her many distant years ago. He mournfully realizes that his marriage has been a life of spiritual paralysis, because it lacks the spiritual union based on a deep love and passion, which he is incapable of.
Although Gabriel can care less about his Aunts’ senile minds, Miss Ivors’s critical view of him “unnerve[s] him” (130). Miss Ivors is “ashamed” (127) of Gabriel, for in her opinion, his commentary in The Daily Express is treacherous, shamefully exposing his “West Brinton[ness]” (127), when he is, in fact, an Irish. When Miss Ivors demands an explanation of his unpatriotic commentary, as intelligent and eloquent as he is, he “d[oes] not know how to meet her charge” (128); instead, blurts out some ridiculous, childish disclaimers like “Irish is not [his] language” (129) or that “[he] is sick of [his] own country” (129). Worst yet, contradictory to his usual composure and years of linguistic training, he “glance[s] right and left nervously and…under the ordeal…mak[es] a blush invade his forehead” (129). This shows the addled state of his mind that is characteristic of a modern man – a man torn between conflicting identities and loyalties. He is angry because Miss Ivors’s patriotic condemnation of him undermines his self-assurance and pleasure of being “a universal man,” his self-constructed identity. Albeit unable to argue intelligibly the meaning of such a title to Miss Ivors, he feels that she has “no right to call him a West Briton before people” (129), not only because he is “sick of [his] own country” (129), but because he believes petty nationalism blocks progress.
Soon after Miss Ivors (Gabriel’s worst nightmare) leaves the party, Gabriel overtly expresses his anti-nationalism. He vows that “[he] will not linger in the past” (139), namely, in the memory of his country, Ireland. Indeed, his speech attempts to indoctrinate progressive ideas. Sounding much like Nietzche, he exhorts the audience that “[they] have…living duties and…rightly claims [to their] strenuous endeavors” (139). His speech intimates that human beings have divine power to dominate and control all elements of this world. Also, Gabriel’s Nietzche-like observation that this new generation is “a thought-tormented age” (138) is a fitting self-image, since he is in a perpetual restlessness with divided royalty between two nations, Ireland versus Britain. Just as modernistic ideals that denounce mediocrity sends Kurtz alone to Congo to prove his superiority, Gabriel’s fear of localism, namely, Irish regionalism, socially displaces him from his ethnic familiarities – Irish language and culture. Thus, exceptional modern men, like Kurtz and Gabriel, are often exceptional eccentrics, psychologically and literally living in the “X-dimensional space” – their space of mental and literal exile.
If Miss Ivors is Gabriel’s nightmarish critic whose rebuke undermines the very core of Gabriel’s belief system, “ivory” is Kurtz’s worst “nightmare” (64) that leads to his spiritual and physical obliteration. If Gabriel is an internationalist, traveling to and embracing the cultures of France, Belgium, and Germany, Kurtz, on the other hand, is a colonialist in Congo, uprooting the native’s culture and devastating its natural resources. Before Congo, Kurtz, like Michael Fury, was a romantic “musician” (71). In Congo, however, obsessed with ivory that renders him money, status, and power, the “original” (50), romantic Kurtz transforms into a mercenary, evil madman, who “take[s] a high seat amongst the devils of the land” (49). While Gretta genuinely grieves for Michael Fury (for he truly loved her), Kurtz’s Intended erroneously grieves for Kurtz’s death, not knowing that he had a more prominent, new lover in Congo, “Ivory.” In fact, when Kurtz’s Ivory enterprise is endangered, his pleading to his mistress shows that ivory has become his overriding purpose in life: “Save me – save the ivory…Don’t tell me! Save me!” (61). Thus, Kurtz’s pursuit of ivory “alone in the wilderness” (65) gradually eclipses his original identity, until “he…go[es] mad” (65) and becomes unsalvageable.
While Gabriel aspires to be a universal man, Kurtz has already earned the title, “universal genius” (71), from those who know him. Unlike Gabriel, however, Kurtz’s “inten[tions] to accomplish great things” (67) shows “no restraint…and no fear” (66). Instead of limiting his material desires to an ideal amount, he, like the zealous modernists who denounce moderation, pushes for excess, lacking all restraints in hoarding wealth, fame, and distinction. In his over-confidence, Kurtz even instructs Marlowe how to gain fame and wealth: “You show them you have in you something that is really profitable, and then there will be no limits to the recognition of your ability” (67, emphasis added). Kurtz even aspires “to have kings meet him at railway stations on his return” (67) to England. Marlowe says that Kurtz has “nothing either above or below him” (65). Indeed, he “ha[s] kicked himself loose of the earth” (65), impersonating God to those around him and to himself.
According to Marlowe, Kurtz, as a deified figure in his ultimate “moment of complete knowledge” (68), “ha[s] summed up – he ha[s] judged” (69) the Eurocentric colonialist sentiment in one word: “The horror!” (69). Likewise, Gabriel’s ultimate epiphany, “that such a feeling must be love” (152), upon realizing that a seventeen-year-old Michael’s love for his wife had been more triumphant and pure than his, forces him to see the hollowness of his intellectual achievements. Thus, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and James Joyce’s Dubliners both explore the effects of modernism which create narcissistic milieu for Kurtz and Gabriel where their body and spirit disintegrate. They are both incapable of love because they are infatuated with themselves. To them, intimacy is an excess they can not afford. Instead of trying to extract a meaningful purpose in life from human relationships, they retreat to the self’s interior – to private experience and excellence – as the source of their ultimate happiness. However, the fact that they are ultimately miserable, and not happy, exposes the ideological fallacy of Eurocentric propagandas of the day, namely, colonialism and universalism.
Works Cited
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. New York: Norton & Company, 1988.
Joyce, James. “The Dead.” Dubliners. New York: Dover Publications, 1991.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Genealogy of Morals. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1954.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. “Will to Power.” Western Civilization. Perry, Chase, et al., eds. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co, 2000.
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