Thursday 2 October 2008
Heart of Darkness pgs 42-54
This part continued Marlow's journey in the steamboat down the river. A bunch of natives attacks and some people get killed. They arrive and the harlequin greets them. He's Russian and ran away from home to be on a ship, like Conrad did. Marlow breaks narrative for a bit to say that none of the sailors now can understand the darkness and what he went through because their lives are too regulated and 'civilized'. Kurtz is mentioned a lot. He is portrayed as a 'voice' that speaks and to which others only listen. He is also mentioned as having gotten loads and loads of ivory (fairly and by finding what the native people bury). Despite the fact (or maybe because of) that Marlow knows the rumours of how Kurtz might have done 'unspeakable rituals', Marlow is still interested in meeting Kurtz. The darkness in people and in the land is mentioned a lot. There is a lot of imagery connected to all of this: violent death, isolation, madness. Especially because of the battle scene.
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4 comments:
Liz-
I really do love how you simplified the scene of the native attack on Marlow’s ship. There is so much extra words used, but when you boil all that down, you’ve summed it up perfectly. Marlow builds up anticipation by hearing everyone else talk about great Kurtz is. Marlow nearly gets completely let down when he thinks that Kurtz is dead. It’s almost as if he’s planed his entire trip just on the ability to hear Kurtz speak. This undue admiration causes Marlow to get to overly emotional about the trip. Marlow hardly ever gets emotional, even when his ship is being attacked by Indians, but he does get upset when he thinks that his chance is lost. Overall, it was sort of a weird section with all of the skipping around of the different events. It took some time to sort out all of the action going on in this section.
Liz, Your post is very interesting. You have basically disregarded most of the text and simply put the actions. This is hilarious. I like it. When it comes down to it, what you described is all that happened. On the other hand, you do highlight the fact that Kurtz is brought up very often in this section. Even though Marlow knows some of the things Kurtz has done are terrible, he still pursues the idea of meeting him. However, it is not the physical being he is interested in meeting, he wants to hear his voice and listen to him speak. This is what intrigues him the most. The action is what brings us in as an audience. Up until now, the story has been pretty bland and not full of excitement. However, we now have natives attacking and blood shed. While these might not be good things, they are at least some catalyst to push the story forward. Nice job on the post liz
I think your post is good because it gives a good overview of what happens, even though not all the details are there. Kurtz is brought up many times because he has become very important to Marlow and his mission or purpose. He wants to hear Kurtz speak and when he thinks that Kurtz is dead, it bothers him because he feels he can't accomplish what is important to him. Another good point that you make is that the the sailors can't understand what he went through because they haven't experienced the darkness and the impact it has on people.
I liked the scene with the journey in the steamboat because I believe it shows a lot of the characters of the people that are on it. I agree that there is a lot of images of violent death, isolation, and madness, but what I find very interesting is that, as you said, the sailors can not understand the darkness because their lives are too civilized. It is interesting that the natives, the "barbarians" as so it may be, show much more composure and restraint through this passage than the people that are supposedly "civilizing" them.
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