Internalization of the Environment

Marlow internalizes the chaos of his environment. He recognizes the hypocrisy of imperialism, but cannot take an extreme position on either side of the issue, so he ends up in a state of internal torture. I imagine Marlow's mind as busy and loud and way too bright, like how a lot of scenes are described in the book. His internal state becomes parallel to the state of chaos in the Congo. With all of this noise, he is unable to come up with a coherent sense of identity.

When I think of a modern link to the themes of Heart of Darkness, I think of how common it is for people to internalize their environments, no matter how mild the conditions. In extreme conditions, it is more noticeable when someone’s mind takes the form of the surrounding conditions, because their mind also becomes extreme. In serious cases of mental illness, it is easy to make a connection between the mind and the world. People who are extremely sad interpret the world as sad, people who are anxious interpret the world as scary, etc.. I’ve even heard the world described as “schizophrenic,” in the sense that there is no valid definition of reality in the world because it constantly contradicts itself. I think Marlow feels this last part a little bit in his struggle to choose a position in such a subjective world. People don’t have to live in extreme conditions for this internalization to occur. In daily life, people experience mood changes that directly relate to the changes in the weather outside. If it’s been cold and suddenly we have a warm sunny day, people internalize that. When people cry at weddings, they internalize the thick happiness around them and it becomes their own. This internalization is so common that I had a hard time deciding whether or not it was a valid theme, but the idea of Marlow’s internalization of his world kept coming back.