The expression of human survival instinct in english literature

CANTHO UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF EDUCATION ENGLISH DEPARTMENT THE EXPRESSION OF HUMAN SURVIVAL INSTINCT IN ENGLISH LITERATURE B.A.Thesis Supervisors: Nguyễn Thị Nguyên Tuyết, MA Nguyễn Hải Quân, MA Researcher: Tăng Thị Vân Code: 7032561 B.A Class NN0354A3 Course 29 Cantho, June 2007 i CONTENTS Contents i Acknowledgements iii Abstract iv Chapter Introduction 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Research aims 1.3 Organization of the thesis Chapter Literature Review 2.1 Definition of instinct: 2.2 Types of Human instinct 2.2.1 The instinct of civilization: 2.2.2 The instinct of savagery 2.3 What does survival mean in general? 2.3.1 Definition of survival 2.3.2 The grades of survival: 2.4 Why should survival instinct be limited to human beings? 2.5 Summaries of the three selected works 2.5.1 The summary of Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding 2.5.2 The summary of Heart of Darkness, written by Joseph Conrad 10 2.5.3 The summary of Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte Bronte 11 Chapter Research Methodology 14 3.1 Research questions 14 3.2 Materials 14 3.3 Procedure 14 Chapter Results 15 4.1 The expression of human survival instinct in the three selected works 15 ii 4.1.2 The expression of the instinct of civilization in the three selected novels 15 4.1.2.1 The expression of the instinct of civilization in Lord of the Flies 15 4.1.2.2 The expression of the instinct of civilization in Jane Eyre 18 4.1.2.3 The expression of the instinct of civilization in Heart of Darkness 18 4.1.3 The expression of the instinct of savagery in the three selected works 19 4.1.3.1 The expression of the instinct of savagery in Lord of the Flies 19 4.1.3.2 The expression of the instinct of savagery in Heart of Darkness 20 4.1.4 The struggle between the instinct of civilization and the instinct of savagery 20 4.1.4.1 The struggle between Ralph and Jack 21 4.1.4.2 The struggle between Kurtz and himself 23 4.2 In what living situation is the human survival instinct clearly depicted? 25 4.3 What are the effects of survival instinct on human beings? 26 Chapter Conclusion- Implications- Limitations- and Suggestions for Further Research 28 5.1 Conclusion and Implication 28 5.2 Limitations 29 5.3 Suggestions for Further Research 29 References Appendices iii iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I wish to send my deep gratitude to the teaching staff of English Department who taught me enthusiastically from the first year until now and gave me an opportunity to conduct my research The next person I would like to express my special thanks is Ms Truong Thi Kim Lien who taught me literature in the third year Thanks to her lessons, my curiosity toward the theme “human survival instinct” is increased day by day, and it stimulates me to write this paper Besides, she also provided me with helpful materials related to the topic and taught me how to understand a literary work Last, I would like to show my deep gratitude to Ms Nguyen Thi Nguyen Tuyet and Mr Nguyen Hai Quan, who enthusiastically guided me to complete my research They helped me find out many useful websites, suggested me a lot of interesting ideas, and corrected word choices and errors so that I could finish my paper on time They particularly devoted their time and energy revising my thesis v ABSTRACT This paper aims to study how human survival instinct is expressed in English literature as well as what effects it has on human beings It is a descriptive research in which various viewpoints on human survival instinct are explored The paper focuses on instinct of civilization and savagery, the two most basic types of human survival instinct Psychological theory proposed by Sigmund Freud is adopted as the framework for analyzing and contrasting the expression of human survival instinct in three selected novels: Lord of the Flies (William Golding), Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad), and Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) The research would provide the students majoring in English with deeper understandings about the human survival instinct when they study literature vi CHAPTER INTRODUCTION There are three parts in this chapter The first part explains the reason why this thesis is conducted The research aims as well as the research questions will be included in the second part The last one will introduce the leaders the way in which this paper is organized 1.1 Rationale There are some rationales that encourage me to conduct this research: When I studied at high school, my favorite subject was literature Through literature, I learnt many interesting things One of them was about the human survival instinct I remember that after studying the story “Rừng Xà Nu” written by Nguyễn Trung Thành, I was so impressed by the wounded hands of Tnu- the main character of the story I wonder many times that how Tnu can live in such hopeless situation: his wife and his son all died in the war, and his hands were also damaged At last, I realized that it depends on our survival instinct When we have the goal in life; we will try our best to overcome difficulties It’s similar to Tnu’s case He wanted to revenge for his family and his fatherland; therefore, he had a motivation to survive vii One more time, the human survival instinct came to my mind when I had a chance to study the subject “English literature” last year Through the three novels of Joseph Conrad, William Golding, and Charlotte Bronte, I understand many things about human survival instinct I realized that besides its good effects, we would also receive its bad ones I wonder how people can react like that Do they feel more comfortable and happier when they such terrible things? I think it’s out of their control, they only know that they must try their best to survive even it will make them worse For me, I’m really interested in human survival instinct I wonder how the grass can grow well without being taken care of, while the rose cannot survive if we don’t water it regularly I wonder how a boy living in difficult situations can take success more easily than the one living in a rich family These questions stimulate my curiosity, and I spend a lot of time to find the answer Therefore, after studying English literature, I want to the research on the topic human survival instinct I hope that, through my research I could find the answer for my questions about the mystery of human survival instinct 1.2 Research aims In my work, I am going to provide the readers with small amount knowledge about the theme “human survival instinct” through the three selected works in English literature In other words, I wish to study the expression of survival instinct in human beings I hope to understand in what living situations the survival instinct can be clearly seen, and its effects on human beings viii In my paper, hopefully, the readers may clearly see the expression of the human survival instinct in the three selected works There are two types of instinct: civilizing instinct and barbarizing instinct The civilizing instinct is the instinct to live by rules, act peacefully, and follow the moral commands, while the barbarizing instinct is the instinct to gratify ones’ desire, and treat the others as their servants In life, there is a struggle between the instinct of civilization and the instinct of savagery This struggle occurs when people live in the extremely hard living condition In those situations, human beings will struggle to maintain the order among them or they will lose their identity and live wildly as animals In this paper, the terms civilizing and barbarizing instinct are used interchangeably with instinct of civilization and savagery to refer to the same notions 1.3 Organization of the thesis There are five chapters in this paper In chapter one, the reasons motivating me to carry out the research, the research aims, and the organization of the thesis will be included The second chapter will analyze, contrast, and compare ideas from previous studies related to the topic Chapter three will state the research questions, materials, and procedure used to reach the research aims Chapter four will present four parts In part one, the summaries of the three selected works will be introduced The expression of the civilizing instinct and barbarizing instinct as well as the conflict between these two types of instincts will be studied in the second part Part three will answer the question: “In what living situations is the human survival instinct clearly depicted?” The last part will discuss the effects of ix survival instinct on human beings The last chapter aims at giving a conclusion, discussing limitations of the thesis, and providing some suggestions for further research CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW In this section, I start by reviewing the definition of instinct and survival as well as limited my thesis in the scope of human survival instinct 2.1 Definition of instinct: x he suggests the boys to hunt the beast on the mountain He is really excited in hunting the pigs and he decorates his face as if he is the real hunter “He rubbed the charcoal stick between the patches of red and white on his face” (William Golding, 1954 p68) Moreover, Jack also uses his strength to bully and abuse the other boys as Piggy, Robert and the littluns This can be illustrated in chapter seven Jack and his hunters play a chasing pig game and use Robert as their prey They are so excited that they nearly kill Robert: “They got his arms and legs Ralph, carried away by a sudden thick excitement, grabbed Eric’s spear and jabbed at Robert with it “Kill him! Kill him!” All at once, Robert was screaming and struggling with the strength of frenzy Jack had him by the hair and was brandishing his knife Behind him was Roger, fighting to get close The chant rose ritually, as at the last moment of dance or a hunt “Kill the pig! Cut the throat! Kill the pig! Bash him in!”…… … Jack rolled over “That was a good game.” “Just a game,” said Ralph uneasily “I got jolly badly hurt at rugger once” (William Golding, 1954, p126) He also uses his strength to bully Piggy He leads his tribe to steal the Piggy’s spectacles When he makes mistake, he agrees to apologize Ralph but refuses to xxxiii Piggy For him, Piggy belongs to the lower class and Piggy has no right to talk to him He is too proud of himself! The conflict between Jack and Ralph increases day by day and comes to the climax after the death of Simon While Ralph recognizes the true problem happening on the island, Jack still believes that Simon is the monster and his death is speculated Jack does not accept his mistake and chases Ralph as if his biggest enemy The conflict between Jack and Ralph is the conflict between the instinct of civilization and the instinct of savagery People want to live by rules, act peacefully, and follow the moral commands However, because of their powerful desire, people forget their good purposes, and pursue that desire They sacrifice people around them and become the monster unconsciously They are the most brutal animal in the world 4.1.3.2 The struggle between Kurtz and himself The struggle between the instinct of civilization and the instinct of savagery in Heart of Darkness is the struggle displayed within Kurtz He is introduced as the talent man who possesses many abilities such as the poet, the musician, the writer and the eloquent skill “You out to have heard him recite poetry his own, too, it was, he told me Poetry!”(Conrad, 1898, p230) He really wants to create a civilized society in the deep Congo River and he believes that with his talent he can conduct these good things easily He decides to leave the luxurious life in Europe and goes down to the Congo to carry out his ideals At first, he is xxxiv welcomed by the natives, for them, he is really extraordinary They admire him and are ready to protect him from the other people because of “He enlarged my mind!” (Conrad, 1898, p230) But, the good thing just exists into his mind for the first time, and then it is replaced by his own desire and his own dark soul Kurtz falls into the darkest place in his spirit, he becomes a Satan If the first time he wants to get ivory by buying it, now he wants to have them by killing the natives “He wanted to shoot me; too, one day- but I don’t judge him.” “Shoot you!’ I cried “What for? “Well, I had a small lot of ivory the chief of that village near my house gave me You see I used to shoot game for them Well, he wanted it, and wouldn’t hear reason He declared he would shoot me unless I gave him the ivory and then cleared out of the country, because he could so, and had a fancy for it, and there was nothing on earth to prevent him killing whom he jolly well pleased And it was true, too I gave him the ivory.” (Conrad, 1898, p218) However, his action can be accepted if people understand his situation He, being trained as the excellent representative of the civilized society, really wants to bring the light of his society to the dark place like Congo and he really wants to help the people there out of their uneducated and miserable conditions He believes that his society is good enough for these people to follow However, his hopefulness soon becomes the hopelessness Living in the terrible place as Congo, he himself must suffer a lot, especially lacking of food, drink and medicine…Day xxxv by day, he must struggle himself to survive, should he maintain the good thing or live wildly and crazily? Should he keep his nobility or get the degradation? There is the conflict within his mind, and as a result he loses his superego, his civilizing instinct He becomes a robber He kills many people and makes a collection of skull besides the collection of ivory He falls deep into the darkness and cannot regain the light until he dies 4.2 In what living situation is the human survival instinct clearly depicted? Through the three selected works, the human survival instinct could be clearly depicted in harsh living condition First of all, in Lord of the Flies, the survival instinct of human beings is expressed clearly when the English boys are marooned on the deserted island Being on the island, they try their best to survive If Ralph, Simon, and Piggy want to make the order and signal fire for escaping, Jack and his hunters want to hunt to pig for finding the foot All of them have the same purpose: survival But all of them have difference method, if Ralph and his accompaniment keep the instinct of civilization in their mind, Jack and his tribe is favor in the instinct of savagery These two of instinct fight against to each other in order to get the survival Unlike the boys in Lord of the Flies, in Heart of Darkness, being educated with the civilization of the Europe, Kurtz leaves his Intended and goes to Congo with the hope that he can bring the light of civilization to that dark place For him, xxxvi the people there live in a very terrible condition, and he believes that he can help them out of their dark place and he will “Exterminate all the brutes!” With those ideals, Kurtz is loved and welcomed by the natives They admire him and considerer him as their relative However, day by day, he forgets his good purpose and falls deep into that dark place How can a talent person as Kurtz can lose his goodness easily? There are two factors that contribute to his change First of all, Kurtz is introduced as an excellent man He has ability to convince other people, with his eloquence, he can collect valuable ivory for the Company For this reason, the manager is so jealous with him and wants to kill him He is afraid of that one day Kurtz will take his position Therefore, he finds many ways to exterminate Kurtz out of his life and send Kurtz to the jungle in Congo River is a good choice With the ideals toward the wonderful life he will create in Congo, Kurtz totally agrees without any suspicion The second thing that pushes Kurtz into the darkness is his own desire After arriving Congo, Kurtz uses his talent to force the natives offer the ivory instead of buying it as he intends before He enjoys collecting the ivory and believes that it will bring him the reputation Now for him collecting as mush as ivory is his primary commission and nothing is more important than that Therefore, the manager and the ivory are the two main factors that push Kurtz into the darkness in Congo River Jane, the main character in Jane Eyre, also encounters the hard living condition This can be clearly depicted when Jane lives in Logwood School, the xxxvii hell of the orphan girls In that school, Jane must suffer the brutality of Mr Brocklehurst, the school’s headmaster Although she is punished and considered as a liar, she still maintains her goodness and overcomes the difficulties in order to get a happy life Once more time, the strength of the civilizing instinct helps her when she leaves Mr Rochester’s house In that situation, she must live in penniless condition and beg for food However, Jane still takes car of the poor girls and teaches them as if she is their mother 4.3 What are the effects of survival instinct on human beings? Through the novels Heart of Darkness, and Lord of the Flies, it is particular that because of survival instinct, the English boys and Kurtz lose their own identity They kill each other and destroy themselves For instance, Jack in Lord of the Flies, because of his desire, he abuses and chases the other boys such as Ralph, Piggy, and the twins…He also acts as if he is the king of the island and he willingly kills whoever fights against him This is the same as Kurtz; he himself loses his identity and wants to rob the ivory by shooting people instead of buying it However, the survival instinct also makes the people be mature This can be illustrated by the character Jane in Jane Eyre She overcomes many difficulties so that she can survive At last she lives a happy life with her husband To sum up, the survival instinct can help people be mature or can destroy themselves This idea is illustrated particularly in the three selected works xxxviii Because of the survival instinct the English boys in Lord of the Flies and Kurtz in Heart of Darkness lose their life and their goodness They want to take the power over the others and abuse to each other However, at last they kill and destroy themselves In contrast, thanks to the survival instinct, Jane the main character in Jane Eyre can get the experience and maturity Thanks to it, she could live a happy life with her lover for her all life xxxix Chapter CONCLUSION – IMPLICATIONS – LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH 5.1 Conclusion and Implication Through the previous chapter, readers can see the expression of survival instinct in human beings in the three English novels In human beings, two types of survival instinct (e.g civilizing instinct and barbarizing instinct) exist together This is clearly depicted through the characters in Lord of the Flies (the English boys); Heart of Darkness (Kurtz); and Jane Eyre (Jane Eyre) Living in harsh conditions, these characters must struggle with each other or within themselves in order to maintain the instinct of civilization and eliminate the instinct of savagery existing in their mind As a result, they can be mature after the conflict or they would be kicked themselves loose of the earth In reality, the survival instinct also occurs within human beings It can influence on human beings in many different ways Thanks to this instinct, people can overcome the difficulties and get to success easily On the other hand, because of the survival instinct, human beings also lose their identity and falls into the darkness They willingly sacrifice and kill people around them Their action is the same with the saying of William Golding “Man is born to sin” xl Hopefully, through this paper readers can get some viewpoints toward the theme “human survival instinct” when they study English literature In addition, this thesis can arouse the interest of students majoring in English as well as their awareness toward the theme “survival instinct” when studying the three selected English novels It can help them have a deeper understanding about the survival instinct of human beings as well as find out the relationship between the literature and reality in the terms of human survival instinct 5.2 Limitations Understanding and interpreting the psychological terms are rather difficult In addition, it is very difficult to search the critical essays on the topic of human survival instinct Besides, the differences in the language and culture cause certain difficulties in total understanding the three selected woks Therefore, I could not interpret the topic completely In addition, few critical essays and journals have addressed to this theme, so this more or less causes difficulties in comparing and contrasting viewpoints in analysis of characterization referred to the theme Hopefully, I will receive constructing feedbacks and suggestions from the readers 5.3 Suggestions for Further Research Besides the three English selected works, there are many American novels that express the theme “human survival instinct” such as Gone with the Wind (Margaret Michell); Be Loved (Tony Morrison) ; Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Harriet xli Beecher Stowe)…These novels can be studied in order to find various ways of expression of human survival instinct in different authors and circumstances Like English literature, in Vietnamese literature, the theme “human survival instinct” is also depicted in many literary works Therefore, it is rather interesting to conduct the research on the similarities and the differences between Vietnamese viewpoint and English viewpoint toward the theme “human survival instinct” xlii REFERENCES Conrad, Joseph Heart of Darkness Ed Robert Kimbrough NY: Norton & Company, Inc., 1988 Golding, William Lord of the Flies Great Britain: Jarrod & Sons Ltd., 1998 Bronte, Charlotte Jane Eyre New York: Norton, 1987 Daniel, L (2004) Living in denial: when morality and survival instinct clash Available: www.stnews.org, Tuesday, March 27th, 2007 Freud, S (1930) Civilization and its discontent Available: www.wickedness.net, Tuesday, March 27th, 2007 Nursel, I Evil in Golding’s fiction Available: www.wickedness.net, Tuesday, March 27th 2007 Sir Oliver, L Problems raised by Idea of survival Available: www.survivalafterdeath.org Tuesday, March 27th 2007 Brian, W (1998) The instinct of survival- Myers Available: http://jrscience.wcp.muohio.edu, Tuesday, March 27th 2007 Freud, S (1918) Civilization and die Weltanschauung Available: http:// www.fordham.edu, Tuesday, March 27th 2007 Truong, T.K.L (2004) English literature (A theme- based course) Can Tho Cantho University xliii Dobie.B, Ann(2002) Theory into practice: An introduction to literature criticisms Thomson Heinle.Boston.US Luu,HK (2005) Tâm lý học chuyên sâu: ý thức tầng sâu vô thức NXB Trẻ VN www.novelguide.com www.sparknotes.com http://sv2.123helpme.com http://www.rasch.org/over.htm http://www.bookrags.com http://www.answers.com http://www.gradesaver.com http://mural.uv.es/juanhepu/goldsatan.html http://www.josephconradsociety.org http://www.antiessays.com http://classicnote.com http://classicreader.com http://manybooks.net http://www.starstore.com http://www.soundtrackcollector.com xliv APPENDIX xlv xlvi xlvii [...]... could not explain the reason why he acted like that Kurtz knows that he really loses his civilizing instinct 4.1.2 The expression of the instinct of savagery in the selected works 4.1.2.1 The expression of the instinct of savagery in Lord of the Flies If Ralph presents for the instinct of civilization, Jack is the good symbol of the instinct of savagery In the novel, Jack is depicted as the boy who likes... two types of instinct in the three selected works will be studied to provide readers with persuasive evidence xxiii CHAPTER 4 RESULTS 4.1 The expression of human survival instinct in the three selected works 4.1.1 The expression of the instinct of civilization in the three selected novels 4.1.1.1 The expression of the instinct of civilization in Lord of the Flies In Lord of the Flies, Golding depicted... for finding the foot All of them have the same purpose: survival But all of them have difference method, if Ralph and his accompaniment keep the instinct of civilization in their mind, Jack and his tribe is favor in the instinct of savagery These two of instinct fight against to each other in order to get the survival Unlike the boys in Lord of the Flies, in Heart of Darkness, being educated with the. .. questions In order to reach the research aim, I am going to answer the three following questions: 1 In what living situations is human survival instinct clearly seen? 2 How is the human survival instinct expressed in English literature? 3 What are the effects of survival instinct on human beings? 3.2 Materials Critical essays along with the three selected works Lord of the Flies (William Golding), Heart of. .. encounter the threats of nature or the difficulties, they intend to act violently to solve the problem This action is considered as a self-defense, but in another case, it could be considered as crime There are many ways to classify the human s instinct such as sexual instinct, food instinct, destructive instinct, etc… However, in my research I will concern on the instinct of civilization and the instinct of. .. rather than to find the way for escaping Therefore, Ralph and Piggy failed in making the order among the boys and are hurt by them xxvii 4.1.1.2 The expression of the instinct of civilization in Jane Eyre Jane Eyre, the main character of the novel Jane Eyre must suffer many difficulties, but she still maintains her instinct of civilization Jane, at the age of ten, is sent into the Logwood School, the. .. instinct of destruction, as it works itself out in the human species.” According to Freud, life’s instinct is the process of the combination single human individuals, and after those families, races, people and nations, into one great unity, the unity of mankind.”(Sigmund Freud, 1918) From the above idea, life’s instinct can represent the instinct of civilization This instinct permits human beings... toward the survival instinct can be various It is not the same as animals’ reactions The human s reactions may be good, or may be bad or neutral while the animals’ reactions are almost always bad In the scope of my thesis, I am going to focus on the survival instinct of human beings because I want to understand the expression of survival instinct in human beings through literature and to see whether... are destroyed when he comes to the Congo River He lives in the struggle between the civilizing instinct and the barbarizing instinct Sometimes, because the instinct of savagery is stronger than the instinct of civilization, Kurtz seems to lose his identity and kicks himself into the darkest place But the instinct of civilization comes to his mind when he lives his last minutes At that time, he understands... help the poor girls; she takes care of them; treats them as if she is their mother, and she forgets her own miserable condition Jane living the hopeless situation still maintains her good characteristic and devotes herself for the good purpose of the society, and therefore she is the representative of human instinct of civilization in Jane Eyre 4.1.1.3 The expression of the instinct of civilization in