AP Prompt #1
Jamie Schug
2004 Free Response Question Prompt
Critic Roland Barthes has said, “Literature is the question minus the answer.” Choose a novel
or play and, considering Barthes’ observation, write an essay in which you analyze a central
question the work raises and the extent to which it offers any answers. Explain how the author’s
treatment of this question affects your understanding of the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot
summary. (2004)
Question 4 Timed Writing (04/23/13)
“Literature is the question minus the answer,” was said by Roland Barthes as a way of
describing what authors commonly do in their pieces of work. In the novel Heart of Darkness by
Joseph Conrad, the central character, Marlow, is faced with many perils and questions on his
journey on the Congo. As Marlow travels to this exotic place, the question begins to arise on
civility and on the actions of others, “Is a civilized man the one with a gun, and how will a
journey affect different individuals?”
Conrad wrote this novel to describe Marlow’s journey and the reader is immediately
immersed in how he will change. In one scene the doctor begins to measure Marlow’s head and
says that every man changes when they go down there, but the change is always on the inside
and how they start to think differently. Also, when Marlow first arrived in Africa, the man he
was walking through the streets with was completely indifferent to all the dying men, women,
and children around him. Marlow is struck by this, and gives one a cracker. However, the reader
is faced with how this place affected this man so much. He no longer cares about human life. As
Marlow travels further into the interior he encounters the natives, the peaceful cannibals and the
violence on the shores, with the jungle always pressing inwards. Even Kurtz was a different,
changed man. The selfish arrogance in which Kurtz embodied was ultimately destroyed in his
dying whispers, “The horror! The horror!” The jungle will change anyone that goes in, but the
question remains how different will the people emerge.
Also, history reveals that one of the motivations for traveling to places like the Congo in
Africa was to civilize the native populations there. This is a noble idea, but as Conrad writes the
story of Marlow, the readers begin to question whether the civilized people are the white men
with guns or the natives with their sticks. As Marlow arrives off of the coast of Africa he is
troubled by the sight of a group firing cannonballs at an empty shore, scurrying because they
think the natives are attacking them. Later on, Marlow employs the help of some of the
cannibalistic natives. Traveling on the same boat as some of the pilgrims, Marlow is shocked by
their level of control in eating rotten hippo meat and in staying incredibly calm when they start to
be attacked by some of the natives. The cannibals were armed and ready for the attack while the
pilgrims were running around, frightened. Also, one of the most basic forms of human nature is
to not want to take the lives of other human beings. In multiple situations, Marlow does not see
this among the white Europeans. When first arriving, the white man was indifferent to death, and
later on he witnesses the pilgrims arm themselves for a battle against some of the natives, when
all that is required is to blow the whistle of the steam boat. Even then a single woman remains on
the beach and the pilgrims did not hesitate in their desires to still kill her. As the novel
progresses, the reader begins to see the savageness of the Europeans and the civility of the
natives and can’t help but wonder as to the true nature of humans and civilization.
Humanity is one of the most obscure and difficult things to understand and in Heart of
Darkness the readers are left with the horrible conditions of the Congo. As they read, more
questions arise on human nature. What does it take to change someone’s character completely,
and how will it change? As well as, who is really more civilized during the times of colonization
and all of the power struggles. Barthes said, “Literature is the question minus the answer” and
Conrad has displayed the nature of this statement in his novel, Heart of Darkness.