This essay compares two literary figures — Orestes from Sophocles' Electra and Marlow from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness — examining how each character confronts unfamiliar circumstances and moral burdens. The paper argues that Orestes is bound by a destiny imposed through divine oracle, compelling him to avenge his father's death by killing his own mother, leaving him no meaningful choice. Marlow, by contrast, freely chooses to journey into an unknown Africa, treating the experience as a personal knowledge quest. Through this contrast, the essay illustrates how the ancient world understood the unknown as fate to be obeyed, while the modern world frames it as opportunity to be seized by individual will.
Orestes in Sophocles' Electra and Marlow in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness are both confronted with unfamiliar circumstances, and both are forever shaped by the deaths that surround their journeys. In Orestes's case, the idea of death is compounded by its impact on his family and by the way in which murder is entangled with the family's destiny. The challenge Orestes faces is not only that of avenging an ordinary death; it is profoundly shaped by the fact that the murderers are also close family members. His tragedy is doubled by the reality that avenging his father's death automatically means committing a sinful act — the killing of his own mother.
Orestes's position and his encounter with the unknown must be understood in the context of the ancient world and its mythology. The relationship between individuals and the gods — and in particular with the oracles — is essential in defining and guiding a person along his path in life. Orestes's visit to the Pythian oracle is crucial in this sense, as he goes there to learn how he might avenge his father on his murderers. The oracle's response encompasses the main characteristics of what Orestes must do.
First, Orestes is instructed to perform the act of vengeance "alone, and by stealth, without aid of arms or numbers." This means he must act in isolation, a significant fact that prevents him from even revealing his true identity until a later moment. Being alone — without even the help of his sister — places additional difficulty on his task, since he cannot share the burden that will weigh heavily on his conscience.
The pressure of avenging a father's death by killing one's own mother is an essential element in Orestes's tragedy. In the ancient world, the act of avenging a father's death is so dramatically imposing that it will not spare even one's mother. Orestes's entire destiny is guided by his capacity to complete this assignment, regardless of the effect it will have on his conscience.
His challenge is clearly the main component of his encounter with the new, and the entire plot he must carry out in order to fulfill his destiny is one of the numerous burdens forced upon him by circumstance. This is perhaps one of the most fundamental differences from Marlow — Conrad's character — who acts on his own will rather than on circumstances imposed by those around him or by destiny itself. Orestes cannot withdraw at any point during the play from the destiny unfolding before him; his choices are not truly optional.
"Marlow freely chooses Africa as a knowledge quest"
"Oracle-driven fate versus personal will compared directly"
The final conclusion is that the modern approach to the unknown differs fundamentally from that of the ancient world. In the modern world, as reflected through Joseph Conrad, the unknown adds extra experience to a character's life and is the product of individual will — something the character fully embraces. No such framework exists in the ancient world: the unknown is an act of destiny, not necessarily desired by the main character, but to which he must nonetheless submit.
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