Transcript Heart of Darkness

Passage Analysis
HEART OF DARKNESS
“nineteen hundred years ago
– the other day…."
From homework
 What will we, as listeners of his story, need to
do in order to fully understand the meaning?
And, how is his manner of conveying
meaning appropriate to the description we
get of Marlow at the start?
“…a decent young citizen in
a toga…” (19-20/7)
 “The fascination of the abomination – you
know. Imagine the growing regrets, the
longing to escape, the powerless disgust, the
surrender, the hate.”
 What image of a person does he develop in these
lines?
Page 20/7
 “What redeems it is an idea only. An idea at
the back of it; not a sentimental pretense but
an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea…”
 What does this mean? Why “at the back of
it”? Why not a “sentimental pretense”?
 Who holds the “unselfish belief”?
Fresleven
 How does the description of what happened
to Fresleven (23/10) reflect what Marlow says
most likely happened to the “decent young
citizen in a toga” (19/7)? Knowing this link,
how then do we read Marlow’s comment,
“Mind, none of us would feel exactly like
this…” (20/7)
The women
 Consider Marlow’s opinion of his aunt. What
does he say about them? How is what they
say similar to or different than the “idea”
Marlow mentions earlier?
First view of natives
Copy the following quote into your notes
 “Now and then a boat from the shore gave one a
momentary contact with reality. It was paddled by
black fellows. You could see from afar the white of
their eyeballs glistening. They shouted, sang; their
bodies streamed with perspiration; they had faces
like grotesque masks – these chaps; but they had
bone, muscle, a wild vitality, an intense energy of
movement, that was as natural and true as the surf
along their coast. They wanted no excuse for being
there. They were a great comfort to look at” (30/16).
 Now analyze it…What is his initial view of the
natives. What language develops this idea?
Copy the following quote into
your notes
 “In the steady buzz of flies the homeward-bound
agent was lying flushed and insensible; the
other, bent over his books, was making correct
entries of perfectly correct transactions; and
fifty feet below the doorstep I could see the still
tree-tops of the grove of death” (38/23).
 Now analyze it…what is going on and how does
it support the ideas presented in the book—
specifically on the pages preceding this quote?
Copy the following quote into your
notes
“The great wall of vegetation, an exuberant and
entangled mass of trunks, branches, leaves,
boughs, festoons, motionless in the
moonlight, was like a rioting invasion of
soundless life, a rolling wave of plants, piled
up, crested, ready to topple over the creek, to
sweep every little man of us out of his little
existence” (54/36).
Now analyze it…what is going on and how does
it support the ideas presented in the book?
Copy the following quote
into your notes
 “The sun was low; and leaning forward side
by side, they seemed to be tugging painfully
uphill their two ridiculous shadows of unequal
length, that trailed behind them slowly over
the tall grass without bending a single blade”
(59/40-41).
 Now analyze it…how does this description
help us understand these two men?
 “Trees, trees, millions of trees, massive,
immense, running up high; and at their foot,
hugging the bank against the stream, crept
the little begrimed steamboat, like a sluggish
beetle crawling on the floor of a lofty portico.
It made you feel very small, very lost, and yet
it was not altogether depressing that feeling”
(,43)
Reread “The Hollow Men” by
T.S. Eliot
 After reading Heart of Darkness, what do
you understand about the poem?
 What is the “shadow”?
 Explain how particular lines / structure
help develop overall meaning.
 - How does this poem reflect the ideas in
The Great Gatsby?
 What is the source of Marlow’s feeling of
kinship with Kurtz?
 Why does Marlow observe that he has “at least a
choice of nightmares” (101/77)? Choice between?
 How does Marlow’s “friendship” with Kurtz
parallel Nick’s friendship with Gatsby?
 Why does Marlow remain “loyal” to Kurtz in
the end?
 Is it because Marlow believes Kurtz’s final
words are “an affirmation, a moral victory”
(114/88)? How are they such?
 Link your responses to questions 4 and 5 to
the “redeeming idea” (20/7) of the opening
pages of the book.
 Reread the opening pages from “when the
Romans first came here” to “What redeems it is
the idea…” (18-20/6-7).
 Connect this “idea” to the Intended’s “mature
capacity for fidelity, for belief, for suffering” (119/92)
and “the faith that was in her,…that great and
saving illusion” (121/94).
 Compare/contrast the African woman with
the Intended.
 What is significant in the way each are
described?
 African woman: 99, 100, 109 / 75, 76, 84
 Intended: 119-121 / 92-94
 What do they each signify? What purpose do
they serve in this novella?
Color
 White/black imagery: examine the usage of
color. When does it seem to fit the traditional
role of white=good and black=bad? When is it
reversed?
Marlow, as narrator
 What do you make of Marlow so far? Of the
opinions he shares, of his uncertainty, of his
tone?