freud and conrad body paragraph 3

Due to their different perspectives, Freud and Conrad differed in their opinion(s?) as to what humanity should do with the knowledge of their inner darkness: Freud says we should accept it and Conrad says we should lie to ourselves. When talking about Kurtz’s legacy, Marlow says, “it was something to at least have a choice of nightmares” (Conrad, 76). Marlow is referring to his choice between being hated by his crew for believing Kurtz was good or his benefit to the company and living with the knowledge that Kurtz was a horrendous man. By saying this, Conrad (through Marlow) offers a choice: either accept and know the atrocities of colonized Africa, or live a privileged life, hoping that man is naturally good. Freud thinks we should accept the darkness of man. When talking about redistribution of wealth/equality/injustice he says, “nature began the injustice by the highly unequal way in which she endows individuals physically and mentally, for which there is no help” (Freud, 4?). Essentially, Freud is saying that people are naturally unequal, and men will inevitably exploit those inequalities because of their innate unconscious desires. Furthermore, mankind needs to know and accept the darkness as a part of psychology and not avoid it. Conrad has the opposite view. At the end of the book, Marlow lies to Kurtz’s fiancé, saying that his last words were her name, as opposed to “The horror! The horror!” (how do I cite?). Marlow wants the innocent fiancé to live her life thinking that Kurtz was a good man and that he did good things unto others. This is symbolic of what Conrad thinks mankind should do with the knowledge of the darkness: repress (suppress?) it under lies. Truly knowing the darkness in man would suck out people’s hope in humanity (the basis of most literary works). Freud’s and Conrad’s intellectual backgrounds gave them differing views on how men should deal with the darkness in them.