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The Darkness Inside

            Stephen King's Bag of Bones is a brilliant work of fiction. It brings so many genres of literature together including horror, romance, and suspense even with all this he still manages to keep the plot on track and the story meaningful it tells the tale of Mike Nanoon a widower who to escape his grief goes to his summer home on dark score lake. While there he meets Mattie Devore whose husband died recently leaving her to raise hr young daughter Kia alone. To keep them safe Mike faces both a crazed millionaire grandfather bent on having Kia for him-self and the ghosts of the lake who have a score to settle. The theme of Bag of Bones is that reason and love can overcome the dark side of man, King developes this theme thru the use of title, character, and organization. .
             The title of this novel is very important to the theme because it refers to the literal bag of bones that contains the remains of Sara Tidwell the women who was brutally raped and murdered along with her son just because they were black in a white town. This single incident shows human nature at its worst, the truly dark side of man which is a key part of the theme of the novel. The bag of bones phrase also symbolizes all of the sins of the past and reminds me of the old saying "the sins of the father are visited upon the son" I think this is also a very important sub-theme of the story because it covers how Saras ghost returns for vengeance on the people who wronged her by killing there children just like they killed her son .
             Mike, Mattie, Max, and Kia these characters are essential to the story and thusly the theme. Without Mike there would not have had a strong rational point of view that could see past the darkness of his past and protect Mattie and Kia from the irrational prejudices that consume the TR. Mattie is a strange but necessary character she provides not only the love interest but also a conflict for Mike because he doesn't know how to handle his attraction to her and vice versa.


Essays Related to The Darkness Inside

1. Inconceivable Breach (Heart of Darkness)

... , while Marlow scared by what he saw, pulled back. Yet the stepping over of the threshold is the entering into the darkness. It is looking into the essence of everything, the savagery contained in our souls. Yet what is better, to succumb to the darkness inside ones soul, or deny it and live outside the truth, never letting it penetrate ones psychological cocoon? When one steps over that barrier they are ... exposed to all the truth that the reality of the human soul contains. These people who deny their nature, the ones who walk on the illuminated side of the breach, do not understand t...

  • Word Count: 1071
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Grade Level: High School

2. Lord of the Flies/heart of darkness

... himself, helps reinforce the helpless tone of the story. At the same time, it also reinforces the theme of the story, that because man is evil inside, he cannot help but release that evil. Conrad's, like Golding's, work was deeply shaped by his own personal experiences with the darkness of man's soul. In addition to the author's experiences, the tone and theme for the book The Lord of the Flies come largely from ... many feared could happen at any moment Golding makes the circumstances surrounding the boys' stranding authentic and frightening. The reader is left thinking, "This could re...

  • Word Count: 4223
  • Approx Pages: 17
  • Grade Level: High School

3. Heart of Darkness

... metaphors, syntax, connotations, and tone to bring about the dominant impression, which is that all men have a heart of darkness. The only difference among the darkness of men is that some are able to overcome it where as others are not. Marlow finds darkness inside him; however, he is able to overcome it. Marlow finds his darkness within him when he realizes that Africans do not ... they brought along a provision of hippo meat."" (61) The light, humorous diction "fine fellows- and "grateful- comes through in a cheerful tone to the scene. Marlow realizes how civil and humane the natives...

  • Word Count: 770
  • Approx Pages: 3
  • Grade Level: High School

4. Heart Of Darkness

... mind, allowing his heart of darkness touch all that he sees may it be for only a brief moment. The constant wonderment that Marlow lives in is his way of dealing with the drama of everything he sees. If he were to see the tortured slaves and not stop for a moment and think about the things that they are thinking the evil inside of him would slowly creep ... to become enlightened. Through Marlow, Joseph Conrad spreads his message about the heart of darkness. It is not something that can simply be ignored, nor can it be bottled up inside forever. This idea is found throughout the entire s...

  • Word Count: 1748
  • Approx Pages: 7
  • Grade Level: High School

5. Heart of Darkness

... in determining our behavior. In this case, the environment plays a key role, but a devious one, in which the "darkness" can actually internalize itself within a man, infecting the host and effectively becoming his nature. We can see that Kurtz, who came into the Congo as a socially responsible, compassionate man has become a monster. The darkness and savagery that surrounded him slipped inside of him, and he has wholly turned ... himself over to it. This may come as a surprise that such an intelligent, morally upright man could convert into an unholy terror. One may wonder at how such a ...

  • Word Count: 2372
  • Approx Pages: 9
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

6. Heart of Darkness

... who were suffering less than fifty feet from him. In Joseph Conrad's novel, Heart of Darkness, we are shown man insights into the darkness, that is the Congo. His characters Marlow and Kurtz undergo similar journeys through the evil and dark regions of their minds. However, Marlow is able to realize the darkness inside of him and retain his sanity before he reverts to a savage animal, like Kurtz ... . Marlow's disillusionment begins as early as when he comes onto the shores of Africa, what you expect ... is almost never what you get. Marlow travels into the Congo and not only meets Kurt...

  • Word Count: 2227
  • Approx Pages: 9
  • Grade Level: High School

7. Symbolism - Lord of the Flies

... consecrated disposition. Lord of the Flies is the name of the sow's head that is cut off and staked into the ground as an offering to the beast. The pig's head is the satanic figure that causes the unsullied character to have hallucinations about the Lord of the Flies, who is talking to him. Similarly to Simon's thought about the beast being the darkness inside each human being, the Lord of the Flies agrees with Simon ... , and that the other boys "thinking the Beast was something you could ... ...

  • Word Count: 1076
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

8. Journey Motif in Heart of Darkness

... Marlow meets Africa's Satan, Kurtz, who has manipulated the native Africans to a point where they warship him as a god. Also on a figurative level, Conrad uses the journey to show Marlow's journey into himself. Marlow has to face the darkness within, very much the same thing that Kurtz fell victim to. Kurtz could not control the greed and the darkness inside of him, and it ultimately led him to ... become a greedy imperialist, simply controlling the weaker Africans that he was surrounded by. Marlow has to ... face this darkness within, but as he continues to search for Kurtz, ... ...

  • Word Count: 659
  • Approx Pages: 3

9. Heart of Darkness

... wild rampage, and the office of the Company with the two women knitting black wool like the fates. The doctor who examines Marlow foreshadows his future experiences: "'I always ask leave, in the interest of science, to measure the crania of those going out there, he said. And when they come back, too?' I asked. Oh, I never see them, he remarked; and, moreover, the changes take place inside, you know. He ... smiled, as if at some quiet joke.""(pp 16-17) Marlow first witnesses the true face of colonialism at the very beginning of his voyage, even before reaching the Congo: "Once, I remembe...

  • Word Count: 4081
  • Approx Pages: 16
  • Grade Level: High School

10. Heart of Darkness

... main forces, deception and honesty. Through the application of structure, tone, and symbolism Conrad explorers the dark interior of men. Heart of Darkness was divided into three sections. Each time a section started the scene was a boat deck. It was written as a narrative inside a narrative and the 'jumping' around from decade to decade and places reminds the reader that it still is a fiction novel ... . After "[Marlow] was silent for a while (75)" the novel is sharply interrupted ... But as he stayed they longer he realized the savage beast was present all over the so called "civilized"...

  • Word Count: 1204
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Grade Level: High School

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