Concept of morality in conrad’s heart of darkness and goethe’s faust

The most prominent points in the U. S. Declaration of independence that our forefathers in my opinion were making are ; All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This is what pops into everyone’s mind when we think of the Declaration. These are all important points that need to be obtained and defended. This insures everyone’s right to live free from oppression and to live their life in peace and pursue whatever they choose to do that makes them happy. It allows us to be Governed but not ruled by any man or kingdom.

Morality in Heart of Darkness is presented as a unifying set of ideas. Where morality keeps society in one piece and makes everyone equal. It is the only thing keeping chaos and destruction out of peoples’ lives. However, Conrad has made morality out to be an amorphous concept that political powers can easily exploit in order to justify any crime they may commit, specifically genocide. Heart of Darkness follows Marlow, charismatic figure, who changes morality in order to justify these crimes. Kurtz is one the imperialists who form the rules of the land to their advantage and make the crimes appear more moral through their power. The point of the imperianlism is to “ civilize the Negroes” when in reality it’s just a race to claim land and a fight for ivory.

In Faust, Goethe brings to readers a view many of his opinions about good, evil, and religion. Goethe uses characters like The Lord and Gretchen in the early part of the play to set examples of goodness. Goethe uses characters like Mephistopheles to stand for evil. Dissatisfaction of Faust with the finite limits on man’s potential — the driving force that motivates him in all his adventures as he strives to find a way to pass beyond the boundaries set on human experience and perception.

The whole poem is colored by this sense of dissatisfaction and frustrated striving. Faust is like all of us: he inhabits a reality of his own creation. His life is a combination of external factors and choices he made to form his current reality — a part of the work-a-day world that no longer excites him. Therefore, in his turn to the black arts, he is looking to escape his current life. However, since his reality has left him unfulfilled and longing, he must seek to mean elsewhere and through other means. Faust embraces the verboten, the immoral, the sensuous in order to eventually find redemption.

In the conversation between the Lord and Mephistopheles in the “ Prologue in Heaven,” and which is indirectly referred to at other points in the poem. The Lord acknowledges to Mephistopheles that it is natural for man to fall into error but asserts that despite this he remains able to make moral distinctions. Thus, the issue at stake in the wager made by God and the devil is whether Faust, as a representative of all mankind, will continue to be able to perceive the difference between good and evil, regardless of temptation and personal sinfulness. In the Lord’s view of human nature, it is admitted that man is imperfect and that his ability is limited, but it is also assumed that human imperfection is not absolute and that man’s potential for good can be cultivated. In this sense, Faust’s dissatisfaction and striving may be interpreted as an unconscious manifestation of man’s potential to improve himself, even though Faust is frequently misguided by his obsessive efforts to rise beyond man’s natural sphere. It is because Faust does retain his sense of right and wrong and because his eyes are constantly focused on a vision of something higher than himself, which is ultimately the cause of his frustrated despair, that he is finally rewarded by entrance into Heaven.

Considered in this philosophical context, Faust’s many adventures all communicate the message that to find happiness man must learn to conquer the lower elements of his nature and live constructively within the framework imposed on him. The concluding scenes of the drama and God’s statements in the “ Prologue” illustrate that good may arise out of evil, but they do not advocate that evil should be sought after as a means for finding the good. The moral doctrine that Goethe puts forward in Faust teaches that the essential feature of all existence and the law that governs the universe is one of untiring, purposeful, and positive effort, and that man can find his place in life only through striving to participate in this vast cosmic movement, although of necessity in terms appropriate to his human capabilities.