Blinding Power and Awakened Morality: A Study of Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon

Abstract

Power either can elevate ethically or corrupt morally. It is intertwined with a few curses; fundamentally it is cursed to bring moral hypocrisy with it. Power,especially power over human beings, inevitably corrupts. Judging by the normal expression of humanity, there is nothing more important in the life of a human being or a nation than the moral standards, by which life is governed and the same perception infers that in all set of conditions, the righteous approach to conduct oneself towards human beings, is to treat with compassion. But a totalitarian state defies all morality and puts everything at stake in blind pursuit of power. Arthur Koestler in his Darkness at Noon gives us a guided tour of totalitarianism, his novel is concentrated on acute criticism of Stalin’s power-hungry rule, a totalitarian ruler of Soviet Russia. Koestler, who was influenced by Sigmund Freud, intricately acquaints the readers with the inner workings of a totalitarian party through the psychological happenings in the mind of his protagonist Rubashov. Rubashov who is a communist militant, a devote party official, manifested imprisoned for unexplained crime at the beginning of the novel. It’s while he awaits his execution in his cell that he begins to have the most serious doubts about the objective morality of the party. The present paper studies the aforementioned novel to explore the relation between power and morality and the role of consciousness, to help the protagonist to realise the importance of morality in life. It further examines the need to implicate morality in the power structure to maintain its legitimacy.