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The character Regina George (played by Rachel McAdams) from the 2006 movie Mean Girls draws some interesting parallels to the character Kurtz from Heart of Darkness. Kurtz is a figure of such magnitude that everyone seems to know who he is. He is described as being a musician, an excellent worker, a politician, a humanitarian, and other extravagant titles. Whether he is loved or hated, everyone has a story to tell about him. It seems as if Kurtz can do no wrong. He is like that popular guy at school that everybody loves to hate…or that girl. Regina George is the same way. All of the other characters have extravagant tales about her. She is pretty, rich, and very popular. She runs her high school.
The characters surrounding Kurtz and Regina are also extremely similar. Regina’s classmates have an idealistic view of her even though she treats them badly (one classmate comments about how Regina punched her in the face and “It was awesome”). Similarly, the natives consider Kurtz to be this “god like” figure. Kurtz also uses violence on the natives, but they still seem to obey his every command. Both characters achieve a high status through their cruelty.
Each of the character’s “crews” is remarkably alike as well. Kurtz’s company is extremely threatened by his power and success, but they continue to pretend to treat him well because of his position. On the inside they want him to fail, but on the outside they are his diligent co-workers. Regina’s main crew, “The Plastics”, consists of Gretchen and Karen. Gretchen demonstrates how much she despises Regina but continues to wait on her hand and foot, as this quote demonstrates: “Gretchen knew it was better to be in The Plastics, hating life, than not be in it at all.”
Kurtz and Regina’s love lives also make some interesting parallels. The intended wife of Kurtz seems to think that he is this loyal, kind, philanthropist who can do no wrong. On the contrary he is a violent man who is cheating on her with a briefly mentioned native woman. This woman is very beautiful and has strange influential powers over Kurtz. Regina’s boyfriend Aaron Samuels is a lot like Kurtz’s intended. He believes that Regina is a very sweet person who is just misunderstood. Regina cheats on Aaron with a boy named Shane Owens. Shane, like the native woman, is attractive and seems to be very important to Regina.
In the end, both these powerful figures meet their demise. Their tower of greatness comes crashing down. Both these patriarchal figures are eventually reduced to nothing. Kurtz goes insane and Regina goes insane with a type of madness.
While these characters are very different in obvious ways, they do have some remarkable similarities. Both of their stories contain common set ups that draw the reader and viewer in. Heart of Darkness is so interesting because its readers can relate to it in obscure ways. No matter how profound some of its themes are, it still draws on common human interests such as popularity, confusion, and deceit. Everyone finds it interesting to watch a seemingly invincible character crumble. Remember: the bigger they are, the harder they fall.
In Conrad’s Heart Of Darkness, Marlowe’s journey upriver is interrupted with stops at three different outposts of the company–the Outer Station, Central Station and Inner Station. Although the Outer Station is messy and its manager is highly unpleasant, Marlowe begins to encounter more sinister characters as he journeys further inland. Heart of Darkness, as we learned is definitely not an adventure story, but rather a journey and a search. This reminded me of Freud’s famous theory of the human mind from his essay “Beyond the Pleasure Principle”, which describes three separate components: the id, ego and superego, which together make up human’s thoughts and impulses. The fact that it came in three, just like the stations, made it interesting to see if there was any comparison between them. The id is essentially about self-gratification and basic desires, without any sort of filter or check against unreasonable urges. It is kept in balance by the ego, which tries to satisfy desires in some ways without going completely out of control. The superego functions as a sort of moral compass, guiding actions by societal rules. I believe that each of these has a counterpart within Heart of Darkness. Upon arrival, Marlow sees the Outer Station as a complete disaster, with junk everywhere and a group of natives dying of starvation while tied to a tree. By contrast, the Manager is impeccably dressed and maintains a facade of control. This station and its manager seem to essentially function as the superego, attempting to control the natives and present an air of order, but society’s rules don’t translate to the Congo the way they would have elsewhere. While there is a sense of order, it is clear that something is amiss, especially with the manager’s reluctance to trust the Central Station, even though they should be able to communicate with each other. The Central Station is buried deeper in the jungle and run by a manager who has a clear resentment for Kurtz and Kurtz’s (suspicious) success. While there are attempts to take away control, this Manager has a firm grip on everything happening around him, and the station functions as the ego in Marlow’s voyage–maintaining order while suggesting an underlying darkness. He is also described as “papier-mâché Mephistopheles” (23). The Faust reference immediately got my attention, but it also seemed to be alluding to a manager who isn’t fully evil or good, but rather a mixture of both–just like Mephisto! The ego can control the natives without descending to the levels of the Outer Station, but there is still little sense of complete sanity, especially with the unsettling Manager. I can see the brickmaker is also representative of the ego, trying to emulate Kurtz’s success and make a name for himself without descending to Kurtz’s methods. He seems like a basic social climber, except I didn’t really see any energy, and he wasn’t even overly concerned about his lack of a real job!
When Marlow finally reaches Kurtz, it immediately becomes clear that he has reached a place of anarchy and lawlessness. Kurtz has been allowed to become a kind of tyrant who is worshipped by the natives, and has been allowed to run completely free of the rules of his old society. From the heads placed outside his door to his fanatical narcissism–“My Intended, my station, my career…”(63), his inner station is the id. Reaching back to basic human principles, it has lost all sense of law and order, resulting in chaos. Without moral guidelines or any sort of reminder of the society Kurtz left behind, it becomes a place where he can be worshipped and get as much ivory as he wants. By traveling from the semi-regulated Outer Station to the anarchy of the Inner station, Marlow’s journey (and mine, as the reader) is also into the human mind itself, and the “heart of darkness.”
So, how many of you remember the plot of The Neverending Story? Yeah me neither, but something about that movie kept reminding of Heart of Darkness. I decided to watch the movie again and I noticed a lot of parallels. The story starts with a young kid, Bastian, who is constantly being picked on discovers a book that involves the reader in the actual story. The audience is then shown that the world inside this book, Fantasia, is decaying, much like the minds and bodies of those who travel to Africa in Heart of Darkness, and being consumed by the Nothing and the empress of the world is dying. A young boy, Atreyu, who looks eerily similar to Bastian, is then summoned to quest for the cure for the empress and stop the Nothing. During Atreyu’s journey he encounters a wise turtle, a vicious wolf, a mysterious oracle, and a lucky dragon. Near the end of the story, he is confronted with the wolf, who is helping the Nothing, and kills the wolf. The Nothing is actually the absence of the hopes and dreams from the real world. The Nothing then consumes all but the palace and then Bastian finds out that he is the one with the cure to the story world. He gives the empress a new name and all returns to normal.
Now you may be thinking to yourself that the only similarity between The Neverending Story and Heart of Darkness is that the actual story is told within the main story. However, there are many aspects of the novel seen within the movie. Except for the old turtle. I think the old turtle is just there for fun for the kids. I mean who does not like 50 ft tall turtles? When Bastian learns that the book he picks up may lead to grave consequences, he is undaunted, because he wants to escape from his life and discover a world of untold adventures, as does Marlow. Marlow wants to discover something new and uncharted and Africa is one of the best places to do that during Imperialism. They are both trying to find something that they cannot attain in their regular lives. The lucky dragon appears in the movie just when Atreyu needed it the most even though he did not realize that he needed the help. Marlow also did not realize that his sunken steam was a blessing in disguise. His wrecked steam boat gave him the time to digest all that was going on around him. Without the chance to wait, he never would have been able to figure out what the schemes for Mr. Kurtz were and without the lucky dragon, Atreyu would never have discovered the cure for the world. The wolf is acting as a catalyst for the growing Nothing. He helps the Nothing because with the lack of dreams in Fantasia he is able to accumulate more power. He says “he who controls the power controls the world”. Where does this sound familiar from? If you guessed Heart of Darkness you would be correct. The wolf represents the growing greed among the Company men for more power and more ivory. They are consumed by their desire for more money and control. This is most evident in the characterization of Mr. Kurtz and his lust for ivory. As his madness for ivory grows, his heart becomes enveloped in darkness and is consumed by it. This darkness that settles in the hearts of those invading Africa is the Nothing from the movie. It seeps into every crevice of Fantasia and tears it to shreds leaving nothing in its wake. It is almost like the Heart of Darkness for kids. Almost…
We looked at some clips from Peter Jackson’s 2005 remake of King Kong in relation to Heart of Darkness, as Jackson added in this sub-story about the deck hand, Jimmy, reading Heart of Darkness as the steamer makes its way from Manhattan to Skull Island, the home of King Kong.
This initial clip, we didn’t get to see in class, but it’s the set-up that I described for you–Jimmy, the deck hand, and Mr. Hayes, the first mate, are having a conversation about Jimmy’s future, as Mr. Hayes is anxious for Jimmy to make something of himself:
So this initial clip shows the introduction of Heart of Darkness as a sort of educational material for Jimmy, to prove that he’s determined to make something of himself, but also as something that Jimmy identifies with himself, as the back cover describes adventures on a tramp steamer. I should note also that the hard stare that Mr. Hayes gives Jimmy about the “borrowed” library book may relate to the scene immediately preceding this one in which Jimmy has stolen a nice pen from Adrien Brody’s character, the playwright Jack Driscoll. Nevertheless, here we’re set up with a relatively light interpretation of Heart of Darkness in which Jimmy interprets the book in advance as something adventurous about a steamboat.
But, in the second clip, the one that we did look at in class, we’re able to see that Mr. Hayes has a preexisting knowledge of the text that differs from this light-hearted jaunt that Jimmy presents to us:
Here, I suggested that Mr. Hayes provides an interpretation of the events of Heart of Darkness, and when we discussed what that might be, a few of you mentioned that Mr. Hayes suggests that Marlow is on a search for Truth by making his way up the river, which is definitely something that we agreed we could see within the text itself, which we tied into our discussion of the figure of Kurtz and the “conspiracy” that we referred to in class regarding the company. After Mr. Hayes makes the speech about Marlow’s desire to know Truth, he [you'll notice a change in his voice here] switches to a voiceover using the text itself from the novella as the film moves from the conversation between Jimmy and Mr. Hayes to the group moving through Skull Island toward the wall to restrict Kong from entering the village. Here’s the citation of the speech that Mr. Hayes gives:
“We could not understand because we were too far and could not remember, because we were traveling in the night of first ages, of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sign–and no memories. [The earth seemed unearthly.] We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there-there you could look at a thing monstrous and free” (Conrad 32).*
We talked about the fact that in the text, this moment is Marlow speaking as the group first begins the journey upriver. This description is in the midst of a lot of language of the group’s disorientation, about being on the Congo. A lot of you made really nice observations about this disorientation, but were also thinking about the thing that is monstrous as the earth here in a state that isn’t comprehensible to the travelers. When thinking about this same quote in terms of Kong, it seems here a pretty overt translation between the description of the monstrous and Kong himself. What we didn’t discuss at length is, why is this Heart of Darkness portion inserted into this film? We had a basic explanation of what the film is about from Linh (thank you), which is plenty substantial to consider this intersection. So, that’s what I would pose for you here, why is this included in this film…?
Please feel free to comment on the above question or on any other thoughts that you have on this in the comments section!
–Daphne
*The pagination that I’m referring to here is from the Dover Thrift Edition of Heart of Darkness:
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Mineola: Dover, 1990. [original publication 1902]
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