Heart of Darkness

[aschezuasche]

Marlow obviously did not want to kill Kurtz. He admired Kurtz and was devastated when he believed Kurtz had died before he got a chance to meet him.

i love that there are so many ways you can interpret this novella. Through the Inferno parallel, the psychological stand point, and the archetypal quest, you can pull out so many things. It's practically never ending and I always see something new every time i read this novella.
The Inferno's depiction of hell closely relates to Marlow's description of the Congo. The river, the grove of death, and the set up of the stations all link to the Inferno. I'll go into more detail in another post.
I for one enjoy the Inferno and psychological take. The whole thing about man's descent into a metaphorical hell is fascinating to me. I have more knowledge about these things than all the biblical allusion within it. I am not a Christian, so its hard for me to catch those references. T-T I have a few, but need more help in this area. Anyone care to share?

[mzmarymack]

Quick question:
what did the old&young women represent? And the painting of Kurtz's Intended? And the black wool?

[aschezuasche]

the knitting women?
They represent the Fates or Nornes. The black wool is the fate string that the Fates/Nornes use. Each string is a person's life and when cut they die. It's a foreshadowing of death and a link to the myth quest and/or a sign of his descent into the Underworld.

The painting is representative of the European women of the time. They are blind (the blindfold) to the horrid truth of the 'mission' but believe in 'civilizing' or bringing the light(the torch) of God/European civilization into the ignorant savage world of the natives (the darkness). The torchlight upon her face is sinister revealing the evil of the 'mission.'

[mzmarymack]

Thanks aschezuasche

To everyone: what do you think conrad is trying to say through HoD?
there are so many aspects. greed, the importance of truth, humanity/civilization,

what's the "so what" for this book?
to open our (european) eyes, HoD is a response to Kipling's "White Man's Burden"
so conrad is saying that we aren't doing the africans a favor? that we aren't doing this due to an obligation to help people in need but that we are doing it for ulterior motives.
And that our (white man's) burden, which is supposed to be our responsibility toward bettering mankind, is actually a burden on the africans that we are "helping," because our greed?

And what is conrad pointing out when he directly associated good health with power and physical sickness with dethronement, which probably isn't a word.

[poet_discussion]

HoD is a really "dark" novel

[nickname0811]

Marlow reminded me of Huck finn. Because they both considered the boat as the important role. The boat was the important figure for Marlow. Because, it was the only thing that can bring him to his final destination. In the Huck finn, the boat was their safe place that protected them from the other. It helped Jim to be freed, which was Huck's last desire to do. Therefore, the boat was the way that protected them away from the dangers, but also only hope brought them to the final destination.

[nickname0811]

Obviously, the color of white and black doesn't seem to represent the darkness and lightness in this book. The real value of black seemed to be lost just because it was concealed by the power of white. There were extreme version of typical white people who are trying to control everything in the Africa, which made the black people to become strangers in their lands.

[nickname0811]

I want to go over pretty much everything that I couldn't talk about in class.
Therefore, it's going to cover a lot of stuff

1) The position of Women in the heart of darkness
- Marlow's ignorant attitude toward the women wasn't nice, however, that doesn't mean that he considered women as servants or anythings that are submissive to the men. He just thought that men and women had the totally different worlds that they need to deal with. For Marlow, women wasn't ready to experience any out of the world so that they need to be protected by men. However, that doesn't mean that women weren't in power of the men. For example, his aunt was the one who made Marlow to accomplish his journey successfully.

2) The doctor
- The doctor seemed to be the only smart one there, however, his work was pointless. He believed that European people who came to the Congo would have the internal change in their minds, which meant that Marlow would have one, as well.

"I have a little theory which you messieurs who go out there must help me to prove."

And then, he began to measure Marlow. He believed that there would be external change if the change had been made in inside. He use external measurement to catch up what he admitted are internal changes

"The old doctor felt my pulse, evidently thinking of something else the while. "Good, good for there,' he mumbled, and then with a certain eargerness asked me whether I would let him measure my head.

3)Kurtz
- He represented colonization throughout the book. By just looking at his appearance, it showed his accomplishment as the colonists. Also, the painting of 'blinded fold woman' showed the Marlow's acknowledgment of African situation. He was aware of the blinded European attempts and desires for the colonization.

4) The colonists
-Marlow commented about the behavior of colonists throughout the book. Marlow didn't directly saying that the concept of colonization was wrong. However, the European were unaware of what the colonization was doing and how ineffective was.
Here is some quote that shows Marlow's attitude toward the colonization.

"The flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly."

[mummu:)]

I personally thought HoD as tough read but having interesting points that the author makes. Statements about civilizations and who the real savages appear. The question is what is the heart of darkness and who holds this heart of darkness according to Conrad?

I don't know if this question is supposed to be answered..but I will give my thought .
I am actually mentioning this in an essay I have to write. I think the heart of darkness is the place of blindness.
The white men who go into Africa to conquer everything and force their way of life into this new place. They march in thinking they can change everything and are least expecting that Africa will change them. Their intentions and beliefs are that they are going to venture into Africa, find ivory, get really rich, and have a lot of power in Africa and bring immense wealth home. And in between all of this, they will 'civilize' the Africans and make them work to change their own country into a European model.
Africa is the heart of darkness for the majority of the European business men because they are blinded by their ignorance, greed, and unwillingness to adapt. It is a place where they are not able to see their own dark nature - of darkness. I think 'heart' is used because all the men are desiring to go to Africa for wealth and as the saying 'your heart is where your treasure shall be', the men go to Africa because of their longing for ivory. And this, therefore, kind of answers the next question: I believe that the men holds this heart of darkness since they are the ones keeping themselves from enlightenment by the blinding light that shows the dark side of human nature.

[bookworm_girl]

Marlow reminded me of Orleanna in The Poisonwood Bible at several points, like when he says "I had no time. I had to keep guessig at the channel... i had to watch for sunken stones... I had to keep a lookout for the signs of dead wood we could cut up in the night for next day's steaming. When you have to attend to things of that sort, the reality... fades..." (30) reminded me of how Orleanna said she had to look after the little things for day-to-day survival, so she had no time or energy to see the bigger picture clearly or to do anything about it. Also, when Marlow returns to the "sepulchral city," he describes the effect of returning to 'civilization' in much the same way Orleanna did: "I found myself bak in the sepulchral city resenting the sight of people hurrying through the streets to filch a little money from each other, to devour their infamous cookery... to dream their insignificant and silly dreams... They were intruders whose knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretense, because I felt so sure they could not possibly know the things I knew... I had no particular desire to enlighten them, but I had some difficulty in restraining myself from laughing in their faces, so full of stupid importance." (65-66) This is very similar to how Orleanna wanted to fling some fact into her neighbors' faces, to indemnify herself from any suggestion of blame. Incidentally, Marlow, like Orleanna, also wants to get rid of his memories of Africa, "to lay them in the dustbin of progress," but they haunt him afterwards anyway, and at the most unexpected times-- in front of Kurtz's Intended's door, and probably on the river at the beginning, which prompted him to tell the story.

I also wanted to share something I've noticed throughout the book. Every time Marlow is speaking with someone about Kurtz, the setting gets darker as night falls, and that obviously is part of the whole light/darkness theme. I thought it symbolised how the more Marlow learns about Kurtz, the more he is horrified by him and by what he represents--white people's greed covered with a veil of altruisitic and philanthropic ideals-- and the more he is enlightened and, in a way, drawn to Kurtz.

[OlutomilolaAsa7]

The struggle between nature and the mechanistic world of european culture in HOD is a theme of the novella that is so powerfully communicated. Conrad really blends themes and creates fantastic imagery when Marlow first describes the African coastline as a "colossal jungle, so dark-green as to be almost black, fringed with white surf"(10). We have already established Conrad's theme of "light vs. dark" in the novel, and in this description it is applied to Africa as the formidable expanse of the unknown and supposedly ignorant. The white surf symbolizes the conquering of the sea by the light from Europe, making Africa pretty much surrounded with light. Marlow has made hints to the European struggle to domesticate the African mainland before, talking about how explorers and colonizers had gone out "bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire"(2). It is clear that, at least in the beginning of the novella, Marlow is sure that his trip to Africa in search of enlightenment is just a continuation of the quests of his fellow Europeans for the spread of enlightenment throughout the world. As the novella progresses, Marlow begins to see that the real business of the white man in Africa is to "rape the bride" of her riches for the betterment of the European economy, much like what Lea realizes in Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible. Marlow also begins to see, however, that Africa is very reluctant to cooperate with the desires of the white man, the land itself creating natural inhibitors for invaders. Another look at the dangerous surf and black, writhing coast of the African mainland makes Marlow think that "Nature herself had tried to ward off intruders"(11). The sun is another threat to the European mission of conquest. Fierce and ever-present, it represents the truth and enlightenment that Marlow searches for in its ability to penetrate any surface and invade any and all spaces in Africa with its light. The heat of the African sun alone is often enough to drive Europeans mad and to their demise, as Marlow learns on a boat trip that the death of a Swede was more or less because "the sun was to much for him, or the country perhaps"(12). The African landscape is a burial ground for machinery, as Marlow sees abandoned boilers and rails looking "as dead as the carcass of some animal" and a wild destruction of "imported drainage pipes for the settlement"(13) in a ravine. All of this imagery shows Africa's rejection of the industrial tools and ideals that have been transplanted by European culture. The geography of Africa makes it so the land cannot be used as that of Europe and America, and the foolishness of the white men to come to Africa and try to establish the same dominion over the land as they have in their homeland, instead of respecting the way the relationship of the natives to the land, ultimately amounts to a grave yard for all that which cannot be used for survival - the key concept in Africa. All of Africa's natural obstacles can be seen as a response to the cancer that is the dominion of European culture. The struggle for the continent's survival is so intense that even some of the starving, shackled and enslaved natives die in Africa's healing process. Just when Marlow begins to see the entire country as a wasteland of dried up inhabitants and resources, he travels futher into the heart of darkness to witness its vibrance and rebirth. Marlow notices, for example, that the land in the Inner Station is "unearthly. We are accustomed to looking upon the shackled form of a conquered monster... there you could look at a thing monstrous and free"(32). In this part of the heart, the earth and its people are full of life and power unexplainable to the Europeans there. Even in an area closer to Mr. Kurtz, Marlow is astounded at the visibility of the war-like elegance of the African culture and the "dim suspicion of there being a meaning in it which you-you so remote from the night of first ages-could comprehend"(32). In this part of the land even exists a "wild and gorgeous apparition of a woman"(55) who seems to Africa, with all her superb African charms and savage attire, an "image of its own tenebrous and passionate soul"(56). This woman is filled with a dignity, anger, desperation, and power that Africa itself possesses, and she leads all the natives in the final push of the white man "out of the heart of darkness, bearing us down towards the sea with twice the speed of our upward progress"(62). Sometime later Marlow looks back on his time in Africa and realizes that, despite all the ravages of European influence on the land, the final moment was "of triumph for the wilderness, an invading and vengeful rush"(68). Though Africa, due to a perpetuative system that robs the land of its own riches, will never truly have an economy that benefits itself first, there is a spirit in Africa that endures. The land simply devours the death and is reborn from the rubble, giving it an eternal beauty and strength that Conrad incorporated into his novella.

[Doha]

i really enjoyed with the brevious discussions.



Keep it up.

[taztara158]

I didn't really have a chance to say anything in class today, and there are a few things I want to point out about pgs. 16-17.

First, at the very bottom of page 16, Marlow says "...through long grass, through burnt grass, through thickets, down and up chilly ravines, up and down stony hills ablaze with heat" (16). This really stood out to me as another relation of hell to the Congo. The burnt grass and heat show that the Congo has suffered and been through hell, and Marlow is only halfway into it.

I also noticed how Marlow uses the "n" word to describe the Africans who came in with weapons and cleared out the towns. Once again he has divided the African people, now into 3 groups- the weak animals, the somewhat strong men, and the evil "niggers".

I also wanted to mention the drunk man on pg. 17. To me, he represented the pure insanity of many of the whites in Africa. The accountant and the guy accompanying Marlow on his journey inland both don't see the value of the Africans. They do not treat them as people and only want to overpower them. In a way they are insane for not being able to accept a different kind of person. Just like the drunk man guarding an imaginary road, they cannot see what is really there.

[merelyjoshing]

Thoughts on Marlow's time at the Outer Station (p12-16)

As we discussed earlier, Marlow's depiction of the slaves in chains shows his racists ideas. However, he is able to see it from a different perspective in that he still see some beauty in them "the joints of their limbs were like knots in a rope" (13)

"They were called criminals, and the outraged law, like the bursting shells, had come to them, and insoluble mystery from the sea" (13) I think this quote demonstrates again how the white man's oppression on the Africans is without reason and confusing. It also mentions the oily water trying to overtake the shore of Africa again "insoluble mystery from the sea"

The one African that was wearing a uniform and had a gun showed how the European culture had changed some of the Africans.

"I foresaw that in the blinding sunshine of that land I would become acquainted with a flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly" (13) This quote foreshadows Marlow's encounters with more evil and the devil. It further demonstrates the changing of the roles of light and dark because the sunshine is what leads him to this devil.

The random hole in the ground and the westerner's "philanthropic desire of giving the criminals something to do" (13) again shows how confusing and unnecessary the occupation of the white man is. They think that they are doing good, but are just hurting the Africans.

"I had stepped into the gloomy circle of some inferno" (14) the shaded grove represents a hell that the dying spirits of the Africans go.
The man (that you cant tell the age of) has a piece of white cloth (yarn?) tied around his neck and Marlow cannot see why. I think it may have just been a makeshift bandage for the man's wounds from the collars. However, Marlow cannot see the reason for this, maybe representing the fact that he does not see the bad in the European invasion yet.

Marlow describes the accountant that he meets as a vision and almost God like. He respects him even though most people would see him to be selfish, keeping his own appearance when there is poverty all around him.

we learn that the business of the company has something to do with the ivory trade.

When the accountant gets mad at the sick person it shows again how the Europeans don't care about life and are more concerned about money.

Mr. Kurtz is the first name that we get.

"correct entries of perfectly correct transactions" (16) this quotes shows the mystery and corruption behind the European's business.

Is there any significance in the fact that each paragraph starts off with an open quotation, but is not ended with one? I'm not sure if it is just a style of writing.

[cl@rinetguy42]

I find it interesting how role reversal takes place in the novel. The reader sees that light is good and that darkness is evil. We also see that fire is destroying and that water is cleansing. For example, at one point, one of the tent-like housesthat the men stayed in at Marlow's camp, burst into flames. Marlow describes it as, "One evening a grass shed full of calico, cotton prints, beads, and I don't know what else, burst into a blaze so suddenly that you would have thought that earth had opened to let an avenging fire consume all that trash (20." the readers sees the fire as a good, cleansing thing, due to the fact that the men are sinful.