More Heart of Darkness

Now we have finished reading the text, you may wish to do some reading, and listening, about it, to help you refelect on your own thoughts and responses.

I will be alternating my marking today with uploading links to some resources on the pre-1914 prose page.

Lots of questions are of course raised by the final pages of the book. Perhaps you could continue our discussions by raising some of those questions for yourself, here, and seeing what responses you get. Perhaps I could get the ball rolling by asking what you think of Mr Kurtz’s last words: “The horror! The horror!” And why does Conrad have Marlow lie to Kurtz’s ‘Intended’ that the last thing he said was her name?

Through the Heart of Darkness

I find that one of the characteristics of Conrad’s style in this work is the juxtaposition of the (apparently) trivial with the (apparently) profound. An example in today’s section would be the linking of the death of the Helmsman with Marlow’s preoccupation with getting rid of his shoes.

What other examples can you find of such blending of the seemingly important with the unimportant? What sorts of effects are created by these juxtapositions? To what extent do you find the developing references to Mr Kurtz fit into this pattern?

Responses that cover all, or part, of those questions are welcome? And what do you think was the deal with those shoes?

Into the Heart of Darkness

An e-text of the whole novel has been placed in the Pre-1914 Prose section.

Further resources will be added as we go along.

Now, your first task:

I want us to identify as many quotations as possible that refer to colour and light/darkness. Find such a quotation from the beginning of the novel to the point we got to today (half way down column 2 of page 9 in the edition available here), post it on here and make an analytical comment on it. You can choose a quotation that uses a single word or phrase relating to colour or light, or one with several, but don’t quote more than a couple of sentences at a time.
I’ll do the first one to get the ball rolling.

Gulliver’s Travels Task

What you have told me, (said my Master) upon the Subject of War, does  indeed discover most admirably the Effects of that Reason you pretend to:  However, it is happy that the Shame is greater than the Danger; and that  Nature has left you utterly uncapable of doing much Mischief. 

For your Mouths lying flat with your Faces, you can hardly bite each other  to any Purpose, unless by Consent. Then as to the Claws upon your Feet  before and behind, they are so short and tender that one of our Yahoos  would drive a Dozen of yours before him. And therefore in recounting the  Numbers of those who have been killed in Battle, I cannot but think that  you have said the Thing which is not. 

I could not forbear shaking my Head and smiling a little at his Ignorance.  And being no Stranger to the Art of War, I gave him a Description of  Cannons, culverins, Muskets, Carabines, Pistols, Bullets, Powder, Swords,  Bayonets, Battles, Sieges, Retreats, Attacks, Undermines, Countermines,  Bombardments, Sea-fights; Ships sunk with a Thousand Men, Twenty  thousand killed on each Side; dying Groans, Limbs flying in the Air,  Smoak, Noise, Confusion, trampling to Death under Horses Feet; Flight,  Pursuit, Victory; Fields strewed with Carcases left for Food to Dogs, and  Wolves, and Birds of Prey; Plundering, Stripping, Ravishing, Burning, and  Destroying. And to set forth the Valour of my own dear Countrymen, I  assured him, that I had seen them blow up a Hundred Enemies at once in a  Siege, and as many in a Ship, and beheld the dead Bodies come down in  pieces from the Clouds, to the great Diversion of the Spectators. 

I was going on to more Particulars, when my Master commanded me  Silence. He said, Whoever understood the Nature of Yahoos might easily  believe it possible for so vile an Animal to be capable of every Action I had  named, if their Strength and Cunning equalled their Malice. But as my  Discourse had increased his Abhorrence of the whole Species, so he found  it gave him a Disturbance in his Mind, to which he was wholly a Stranger  before. He thought his Ears being used to such abominable Words, might  by Degrees admit them with less Detestation. That although he hated the  Yahoos of this Country, yet he no more blamed them for their odious  Qualities, than he did a Gnnayh (a Bird of Prey) for its Cruelty, or a sharp  Stone for cutting his Hoof. But when a Creature pretending to Reason,  could be capable of such Enormities, he dreaded lest the Corruption of that  Faculty might be worse than Brutality itself. He seemed therefore  confident, that instead of Reason, we were only possessed of some Quality  fitted to increase our natural Vices; as the Reflection from a troubled  Stream returns the Image of an ill-shapen Body, not only larger, but more  distorted. 

He added, That he had heard too much upon the Subject of War, both in  this, and some former Discourses.

 

Compare this passage with the description of warfare from Part 2 of the novel, focussing particularly on differences in language use.

What does it reveal about the way Swift portrays the shift in Gulliver’s attitudes through the novel?

What does it suggest about the attitude of the Houynhmhs towards humans?

The worksheet containing the passge from Part 2 is available here

Gulliver’s Travels

I have added a few more links to the Pre-1914 prose page, including one to an excellent short online course.

I very strongly recommend you all in year 11 to work your way through this. Depending on your speed of reading, and how long you take over the quizzes or any note-taking, you could work through this in as little as half an hour; certainly it shouldn’t take more than about an hour, and you’ll be able to tell people you have completed a university course (sort of). You are required to register your address and email details as it is a course provided by the University of Washington, and they need to be able to track the use of their courses. They have a strict privacy policy so your details will not be passed on to anyone else; it is quite safe.

The course is particularly useful for filling in some of the details of the historical, political, social and religious background to the story, which I am able to touch on only briefly in class.

The course can be found here