Personal Reflection

        Heart of Darkness did alot for me. First it was yet another step in my never ending quest to become familiar with all the styles of English writing (both prose and verse) between my native Modern English and my second Shakespearean English. This book also showed me the origins of one of my favorite movies of all time (Apocalypse Now). I always hear about stories that absolutely don't make their characters relatable, but this is one of the few cases when that proves to be a good thing. Marlow despite being to some exstent the projection of the author is always very separate from the story, this would be death to other books, but here it works. This goes back to something Mr. Booker told us in Comm. Tech "You can break the rules, as long as you know the rules your breaking". This story also does alot for me in terms of the exploration of power (one of my favorite topics) and almost seems to suggest that the impersonal corporation that evokes no loyalty apart self interests in it's employees, actually has more control over it's people than Kurtz does over the "savages" who worship him as a god. The thing that strikes me now is how much I really don't understand a book until I've put it's ending a week in the past. When reading this book I really didn't get it. I mean I took in the story fine but really I almost found it a chore to read but a week later (and now a month later) it's one of my favorite books. Compare this to The Da'vinci code which I read in one day and couldn't put but now doesn't make my top top 100 books. I really need to live with these things abit to get them.

Apologia: Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is one of the greatest works of the 19^th century and deserves it’s place alongside such classics as Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities and Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo in the literary canon of the 1800s. That is frighteningly impressive company, however Heart of Darkness can hold it’s own in such company for the same reason it might be quietly removed from such company, because of how creatively and irredeemably ugly it is. In amongst the tales of selfless sacrifice and redemption in spite of time and adversity, in amongst these heart softening stories lies a heart harding story of man’s blackness and evil, of selfishness and profit venture, of the path of least resistance. That is why Heart of Darkness must be in the canon, because it is different, it is one of the rare stories where you care nothing about anyone and none of it matters.

Heart of Darkness follows Marlow’s journey through three layers of darkness "the darkness of Congo wilderness, the darkness of the European’s cruel treatment of the natives, and the unfathomable darkness within every human being for committing heinous acts of evil" (HoD, The Literature Network). The darkness of the Congo wilderness creates the isolation necessary to explore the other forms of darkness throughout the story. The darkness of colonialism seems dated to us now, however such treatments of natives is still relevant to modern imperial nations as seen in Apocalypse Now, the best adaptation of Heart of Darkness in film, "Coppola replaced European colonialism with American interventionism" (Apocalypse Now, Wikipedia). Finally there is the Darkness at the Heart of all men and the desire to take the path of least resistance / greatest profit, most hear would go on about the character of Kurtz, however I found the true revelation of this was at the end when Marlow tell Kurtz’s fiancé that Kurtz’s last words were her name as opposed to the truth, his last words "The horror, the horror" (Heart of Darkness, Wikipedia), this shows that not even Marlow the protagonist is free of this darkness.

Heart of darkness is a great book, it deserves the praise it gets because there is no possible way you will enjoy it. Heart of Darkness was made to reveal the darkness we’d rather ignore, it was made to be painful to read. The only thing I can think of from other genres that compares would be Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the film not the novel, in that it is completely uncompromisingly ugly.

Works Cited

Dalrymple, Theodore. "Heart of Darkness". New English Review. Oct 2006.
          Web.29 November 2010.

N/A. " Heart of Darkness (1902)". The Literature Network.. N/A. Web.
          29 November 2010.

N/A. "Heart of Darkness". Wikipedia. 25 November 2010. Web.
          29 November 2010.

N/A. "Apocalypse Now". Wikipedia. 25 November 2010. Web.
         29 November 2010.

RRP 4: Heart of Darkness / Apocalypse Now

I have just had a look through my previous posts and was shocked to find not once have I mentioned Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, by far the best adaptation of the novel, and one of my favorite films of all time. I am shocked I haven't mentioned it because the reason I picked Heart of Darkness to read  is because I love that movie so much. The movie is essentially the same story of a group of men going up a river into increasing darkness morally, emotionally and phisically to find a man by the name of Kurtz who has gone insane and is power tripping. However the story has been transplanted into Vietnam and instead of bringing Kurtz back they are there to kill him.

The book and the movie both capture the universal story of being on a journey that is best not taken, a journey into the heart of human darkness. However while the book just told a story along these lines the movie actually made a concious effort to refference and borrow (but in a good way) from other stories along that vein most notably The Odyssey with the cyclops, the sirens and the wirlpool (taking the form of a battle with all the leaders dead) being referenced.

The reason Apocalypse Now is nessesary to metion is because apart from it, heart of darkness doesn't have much of a presence in popular culture apart from the ocasional reference.

RRP 3: Racism in a Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness, starting in 1970s has been criticized by many people as racist do to it's dehumanization of the Africans' and the gratuitous use of the word "nigger". this was put forth by Chinua Achebe to a academic world that was far less than receptive. But upon hearing his arguments my response was "ya, so what?" Of course it's racist, it was written by a Victorian colonialist in 1899. If it wasn't horribly racist by 1970s standards Joseph Conrad would be remembered for his omniscience. The thing is Heart of Darkness is based on Conrad's own work on a steamboat in the Congo so his novel truly captures the atmosphere and attitude of working in the Congo for a the Dutch  trading comany. If Nazi Germany had won the war and a concentration camp guard wrote a memoir ( this is the only other situation of comparable mass genocide and slavery I can think of) on his work I wouldn't expect it to be half as damning and critical.

The thing is despite the fact that Joseph Conrad was racist (it was the 1890s everyone was) Joseph perfectly captures the attitudes of the people who worked at these trading outposts. This book reminds me of Downfall (if you have not seen this movie watch it) which is about the last days of Nazi Germany's leadership, in that they both allow you to understand the people that are destined to become the  villians of history.

"There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are either well written or badly written. That is all." - Oscar Wilde

And Heart of Darkness is very well written on all levels.

Reading Responce Post 2: The darkness

The tale of Heart of Darkness is a classic bad to worse story in that each event, each sequence is more gut wrenching and awful than the previous one. This darkness of content is accompanied by a darkening of setting and era, as Marlow travels up the river, he leaves civilization behind and slowly the jungle begins to creep in and block out the sun. Also as he travels up the river he seems to be traveling back in time as he leaves the Late 1800's behind he arrives in the Congo which is governed with a brutal 1600th century mentality of the natives as nothing less than cheap expendable work mules to be put down at the first sign of trouble, next he encounters the traders up river and the managers who rule their outposts like feudal lords constantly fighting amongst themselves for the favour of the all powerful company. finally Marlow finds Kurtz atthe source of the  river who rules over his his violent tribal band of natives as a god. This is especially disturbing because all the other traders have been immensely envious of him -to the point of considering murder. This is a perfect portrait of evil because it shows the willingness of men ( it is always men) to dash enlightenment, morality and progress on the rocks in favour of their self interest and dreams of absolute rule.

Frankenstein frightened me but not for the reason it should have. Frankenstein frightened me because the novels creation reveals a world frightened by change and progress and enlightenment, when even in the novel it was Victors faliure to do proper followup not the science itself that caused the problem. Heart of Darkness show that evil part of humanity that would stop progress to wallow in primitiveness.

Reading responce post 1: Into Africa

Much like Frankenstein, Heart of Darkness uses a frame story of Marlow (our protagonist) reflecting aboard a ship (at an undisclosed future date) that Britain two was once one of the dark places of the world this train of though then prompts him to tell his fellows of his ill fated journey into the heart of Africa up the Congo river, in this segment I find the human hierarchy and power itself is explored in great detail. At the bottom are the actual Africans, whom are used to build up the power and status of the whites. The whites of course treat the Africans horribly and consider the Africans disposable (their is an excellent sequence where Marlow reflects on the similarity between the rusting broken machinery by the side of the road and the rotting broken blacks beside it). This of course is terrible but then you realise that the whites working their the local managers and accountants and traders are just as disposable in the eyes of their magical overlords back in Europe and have a terrible mortality rate themselves.

The use of that word magical leads to the next point,how underlings Deity their masters and how those who achieve power exploit it whether knowingly or unknowingly. Marlow received his job in the Congo because of his aunts connections -Marlow at the time being a Hamlet-Esq directionless twenty something. However apon arriving in the Congo the local whites seem to worship him as a messiah set by the Masters in Europe and give him an authority that is unprecedented for someone with his lack of experience, he is also repeatedly asked if he could "put in a good word"  by just about everyone this is incredibly perplexing for him since he doesn't even know who he'd give the word to. This serves to highlight the power that the foreign has over people the power that the unseen masters have over their underlings do to their mystical connection in spite of isolation. This mystical relationship as with all the other themes of this story come to ahead whenthe legendary trader Kurtz is introduced and it ids revealed that he achieved his position of power over the natives by convincing them he is a god.
This theme I find true within modern society how our isolation from our masters be they government, large companies or celebrities ensures our cooperation in spite of the lack virtues that would warrant such compliance.