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47 pages 1 hour read

Arthur Koestler

Darkness at Noon

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1940

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Themes

Power and Suffering: Who has the right to kill and for what reasons?

The book’s epigraphs—one by Machiavelli and one by Dostoevsky—establish the central theme of the book, which is an exploration of the relationship between power and moral decency. The Machiavelli excerpt, from Discorsi, explains the necessity of killing off one’s predecessor, as well as the descendants of one’s predecessor, if one is to remain in power. The brutal and Machiavellian logic of power is juxtaposed with the call to moral decency implied by the Dostoevsky excerpt, from Crime and Punishment, which asserts that “one cannot live quite without pity.” Rubashov’s attempt to reconcile his responsibility to carry out the goals of a bloody revolution he helped engender—a responsibility that seems to require strict adherence to Machiavellian principles—with his individual moral responsibility to the people the revolution was meant to help is what drives the book as a whole. 

Related to this theme is the question of the “meaning of suffering” (259). In the last hours of his life, Rubashov finds he wants to explore “the difference between suffering which made sense and senseless suffering” (259). This question of suffering and what it is for underlies the larger question of the relationship between power and decency, particularly in relation to state-sanctioned imprisonment, torture, and murder. What ends are worth the cost of human suffering, and how much suffering is necessary?

Human Suffering: What kind of suffering is morally acceptable?

Related to the theme of power and morality is the question of “the meaning of suffering” (259). In the last hours of his life, Rubashov finds he wants to explore “the difference between suffering which made sense and senseless suffering” (259). This question of suffering and what it is for underlies the larger question of the relationship between power and decency, particularly in the case of state-sanctioned imprisonment, torture, and murder that are justified by the morality of “consequent logic.” What ends are worth the cost of human suffering, and how much suffering is morally acceptable? Is it okay to sacrifice many in service to the greater good? If so, how is the “greater good” defined, and who defines it?

Enlightenment: How does one reach truth?

Rubashov is a theorist and a knowledge-seeker, and he believes that reason and logic are the best way to seek enlightenment. What he discovers, however, during the last month of his life, as he struggles with the guilt that his logically-based choices have caused him, is that enlightenment is not necessarily a question of logic or something that can be attained through reason. Reason only leads him to the “penultimate lie with which one” serves the “ultimate truth” (197-198). The book’s repeated Christian motifs and Rubashov’s distrust of the “first person singular” (the “I” that he names a “grammatical fiction”), which he associates with a religious or ecstatic mysticism, suggest that he suspects that enlightenment lies just beyond reason and can only be seen briefly when looking askance. In this way, enlightenment is related to suffering; for Rubashov, suffering seems to be the means by which one achieves enlightenment, if only in glimpses.

Guilt: How does one atone for one’s sins?

Underlying all of the themes discussed above is the question of guilt. Rubashov’s guilt is the direct result of his quest for enlightenment—or, rather, his premature certainty that he has reached an enlightened state through reason and logic. Rubashov suffers most keenly not as a result of being tortured but because he feels guilty about his role in the suffering of others. Finally, his guilt is also the result of his own unacknowledged quest for power. Though he is not ambitious in the way that No. 1 is, Rubashov’s revolutionary fervor manifests itself in a pitiless quest for the power to change the world according to his own vision of rightness. The final question of the book, then, is whether his public confession of guilt and his execution are sufficient assuagement of his guilt.

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By Arthur Koestler