Comparisons Between the Development of the Subconscious in Characters in Gordimer's July's People and Conrad's Heart of Darkness

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Amber Lee

English 2 - World Lit

September 22, 2002

Comparisons Between the Development of the Subconscious in Characters in Gordimer's July's People and Conrad's Heart of Darkness

        Following an irregularity or turbulence of one's environment and lifestyle, basic human motivations and behavioral patterns undergo many significant changes. The psychological development of the characters in July's People and Heart of Darkness is comparable to each other, as the characters in both novels experience a change from living a life of comfort and luxuries to being reduced to a lifestyle dependent upon nature and few material privileges. This also causes the characters to feel a severe threat to their sense of mastery as a European. The characters in both novels are driven into the less explored regions of Africa, which Graham Greene describes as a great continent in the shape of a human heart, “a place where barbarism triumphs over humanity, nature over technology, biology over culture, id over superego.” (McLynn, ix) It appears that Africa has become a topology of the mind, all beckoning part of the chaotic unconsciousness within the while European, waiting to be discovered and explored. It is easy to scout parallels between Marlow’s tale and the Smales’ stay in Africa, seeking insight into the language of depth psychology.        

In July's People, revolution forces the Smales to escape to their former servant's dearth black village where they are alienated and deprived of their material luxuries, an emergence of the Smales' class identity. Their being shoved into an environment of filth and insects and mud walls from a previous lifestyle of shiny white bathrooms and hired services diminishes their level of superiority in the village. Maureen in particular expresses a strong fear of degeneration, which is shown in the way she clings to the anomalous bourgeois conventionality of "two cups of tea and a small tin of condensed milk, jaggedly-opened, specially for them, with a spoon in it." Another evidence of a sense of possession for their European identities is the way Bam and Maureen defines their identities as a series of hollow middle class titles that demonstrate an economic advantage: "Maureen and Bam Smales. Bamford Smales, Smales, Caprano & Partners, Architects. Maureen Hetherington from Western Area Gold Mines. Under 10s Silver Cup for Classical and Mime at the Johannesburg Eisteddfod" (2).

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Marlow’s reaction to primitive conditions is different because, rather than being forced into his journey, his was one chosen for himself to escape from the standards of city life in Europe, and he has been given time to prepare himself psychologically. However, he also feels his sense of mastery as a European is severely threatened, particularly because Marlow bases his perceptions of the Africans on a kind of thinking that was current during the time that Conrad wrote the novel. Scientists during the time theorized that various human populations existed in different levels on an evolutionary scale from savage to ...

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