Connection: Heart of Darkness and Viewing Issues

How we view and come to conclusions about situations and issues is based on what point of view we are seeing them. Whether we agree or disagree about an issue depends how they are portrayed to us. What is the best way to analyze an issue? How many points of view do we need to see before coming to a conclusion? Heart of Darkness has multiple levels of storytelling, giving us many sides of the story. But how do we know what to believe?

In Heart of Darkness, we see story telling from many people. First there is the author writing the book, and the narrator depicting everything. Then there is Marlow, who is telling the narrator a story. Within the story, there are even more people who tell stories. So, what is the real story anyways? Sometimes it is hard to tell what is even going on, because the characters don't always know themselves. So how should we see the story? Should we believe everything a character tells us?

In the media, things are most often portrayed to us one-sided. We see the newstations view, and that is really about it. We see the opposing sides to the situation sometimes. In news articles, not information is always available to us. We make decisions and judgements based on what we read. If we are lacking another side of the story, these decisions and judgements become biast.

What is the purpose of reading things, if all we are getting is one side? This is what makes Heart of Darkness so great. We see all of these levels and different sides of characters, events, and stories. The news today is so focused on the economics of their business. What will sell? Will people watch our show? These are the things they worry about, rather than putting out a solid, mulitiple level story.

We, as citizens of the world, deserve to see all sides of things before making a decision. Racism and hate both stem from lack of knowledge of other cultures. If we learned more about how different kinds of people feel, we would have greater knowledge and wisdom in general. Heart of Darkness has endless levels within it. Learning from this book is one way to gain wisdom. The more we analyze things, the better we understand them.