Sheet of the Week 2/7

Happy Superbowl!  I hope you're eating some nachos, kicking up your feet and of course, finishing your reading for tomorrow.  There's nothing like a little Darkness to get you ready for half-time...

Anyway -- just a few reminders for the week:

For Monday, you should have read at least through p. 84, with plans to finish the novel by Wednesday.  Your final RR will be due on Thursday.  By now you should have posted your first response (or part of it) on the blog and responded to at least one of your classmates' posting.  We'll do the same for the 3rd response (don't worry about posting the 2nd; I can only read so much!) 

In the meantime, we'll talk a little more about part 2 tomorrow, then move to part 3 in the second hour and on Wednesday.  We'll also start talking about the commentary and Poisonwood questions which will be due after break.

I'm posting the passages on the Heart of Darkness/Poisonwood page (to the left).  To reserve yours, click on the page, read and put your initials by the one you prefer.  First come, first served!

Finally, follow this link for the Achebe article I've been mentioning in class.  We may not get to it till after the break, but have a look when you have a moment.  I think you'll find it scientifically interesting...

http://kirbyk.net/hod/image.of.africa.html
Till tomorrow!

RR#2 Part II Heart of Darkness

Cannibals

The cannibals are natives who were hired by the whites to work on Marlow’s steamship that had just gotten repaired and which was sailing on a two month trip to get to Kurtz. Marlow was actually impressed by the good work of the natives, called cannibals by the whites, done on the steamer as well as their patience, resistance, their attitude; not till that point showing their animalistic character. What seemed to confuse Marlow about these natives was the fact that they were maybe normal and not inhuman. This should prove to be a further step in Marlow’s detachment from the colonists’ beliefs about the natives. Furthermore, Marlow not being on very good terms with the manager and the other Europeans, he could see, from a different and closer perspective, the work of the natives on the steamer, their alertness, despite being very hungry. Marlow showed some admiration towards them after taking a closer look as well as more respect. Moreover, there seems to be a contradiction, as when the steamship seemed to be attacked, it is actually the pilgrims who acted like savages and started shooting everywhere while, on the other hand, the cannibals remained calm and did not turn against the people on the ship but instead defended them, stood by them and did not resort to violence as the pilgrims did.

Ivory

Here is my short response on the symbol of Ivory in Heart of Darkness:

Ivory may usually be found on elephants, as it is the main component of their tusks. In effect, in Africa there are a lot of elephants and at the time this novel was written, the ivory was quite important. In the passage we have read, Marlow compares the ivory to a religion that the white people are worshiping. He describes the men as: “faithless pilgrims bewitched inside a rotten fence. (…) You would think they were
praying to it [Ivory].” In fact we can say that Ivory represents the white men’s desire to come to Africa and take everything precious they have, everything that has some value in Europe or elsewhere. It somewhat represents the avarice of the white men. I think Ivory is a strong symbol as for Marlow; it represents the God most men are worshipping at the Company. It may have another meaning later in the books as Ivory may have different signification or a stronger one than just the desire of wealth.

Heart of Darkness Reader Response (pp. 18-19)

Here is an extract of my Reader Response:

Marlow ironically criticizes the essence of the relation between European and African. The narrator does so by creating a indifferent tone, in order to accentuate the banal manner in which cruelty took place during the colonialist period. As seen at the start of the chapter, Fresleven, a Danish sailor brutally murders a native individual for a feeble cause. The notions implemented within the narration relate to white men having incited acts of non-justifiable violence, which in return contradict the principles of their initial mission. Indeed, in the passage, several black men are chained up, seen through the usage of the term “chain-gang”. The black man was considered essentially portrayed as the “nemesis”, however Marlow demonstrates his skeptical vision of the situation by valorizing, the illogical faculty of this political system: “These men could by no stretch of imagination be called enemies. They were called criminals”, an emphasis on the corruption of the presumed order is created, as Marlow realizes the violation of all forms of justice. Above all, the man in charge of the chain-gang is European as well, an image of the perversion of white men as well as the immoral complicity, due to illusions of dominance and power, between them. This passage epitomizes Marlow’s first realization of the existing relation between both opposing groups of individuals. He does so by firstly, criticizing and mocking the essence of the white man’s principle: “After all, I also was a part of the great cause of these high and just proceedings”, in this citation he discovers the hypocrisy of Europeans as well as his by simply being a part of the imperialistic movement as well. Secondly, Marlow dictates a strong contrast between two types of devils in the world: the devils of violence, greed, and hot desire are an image of the white man’s utter immoral presence on the African continent, in the illogical nature of his acts, his want yet impossible control over all objective elements, as well as his dark desire to attain in. However, the narrator opposes this satanic entity to the flabby devil, an individual, characterized as being blinded by illusions of higher principles. Concretely, Marlow implies that such an individual has no use over his reason; therefore he lives in his lost sense of humanity which intensifies the actual bestiality of his perverted mind. Marlow however characterizes himself as being in complete disdain, the psychological mutation within him is taking place.

Sheet of the Week 1/31

So you had a snow day on Thursday, yippee!!  I just can't believe I actually missed it.  Siiiiigh. 

A few reminders/developments for the upcoming week:

On Monday, we will fill in the rest of Part 1 of Heart of Darkness, concentrating on Marlow's observations of both the Congolese and the Europeans in Stations 1 and 2.

On Wednesday, we will spend the first hour doing the close reading annotation we'd proposed to do last Thursday.  You are required to read part 2 and write an RR for Wednesday.  (We'll talk a bit more about options tomorrow...)  We'll plunge into our discussion of part 2 in the second hour.

Remember also that you were supposed to post a portion of your reader response on the blog.  Please do so immediately, if you haven't already.  I'll ask you to do the same for your second response.  You are also accountable for writing a response to one student's post, for each rr.

Enjoy your evenings!

RR: Heart of Darkness

As Marlow arrives to the First Station, we can already tell that the atmosphere is not pleasant, “an undersized railway-truck lying there on its back with its wheels in the air…the thing looked as dead as the carcass of some animal”. The railway-truck is used as a metaphor to describe the environment that Marlow is seeing, which are “dead animals”. The diction in this passage is negative and dark, “dark things, smoke, war, enemies, deathlike, devil, greed, violence, Inferno.” The way I imagine what Marlow is describing this place to be is an image of a hell-like place. He perceives the station to be this horrible place of violence and when he wants to get away from it by “going under the trees for shade” he realizes that he is in a place of no good. When Marlow encounters the six men, “they walked erect and slow, black rags were wound round their loins, I could see every rib, the joints of their limbs were like knots in a rope; each had an iron collar on his neck, and all were connected together with a chain”, it is revealed that they are treated like animals, chained together with iron collars around their neck. Marlow doesn’t understand how these people can be called enemies, when they are treated as criminals in their own country. These six men pass Marlow with “deathlike indifference of unhappy savages”, which suggests these men are treated like animals. In addition, we know that Marlow is completely horrified by what he sees because he says, “I’ve seen the devil of violence, greed and hot desire…But…” the conjunction “but” shows Marlow’s change in emotion and that this place is in fact the “heart of darkness” controlled by men with no morals. As Marlow is completely appalled with what he sees, he seeks a place to go away from all this nonsense and finds a hole and Marlow realizes that he has stepped into a “gloomy circle of some Inferno”.

RR#1 Hear of Darkness (Option B)

Marlow’s aunt: Marlow talks about his aunt in the beginning of the novel, stating that it was her influence that led him to obtain this job; becoming skipper of a river steamboat. Marlow’s aunt had friends in the Company’s administration and thus used her connections to let her nephew Marlow obtain a job in the Company, after the death of one of the Company’s captains in Congo. It seemed like Marlow’s aunt loved him and wanted to do anything that would make him happy. Marlow shared that same feeling at first and was anxious to go to Congo, after being appointed quickly following Fresleven’s death and following the request made by his aunt. She doesn’t play a big role in the novel, except for the fact that she is the one who allowed and made possible for Marlow to be able to go on his adventure to Africa and meet Kurtz. Without her, it would have been harder for Marlow to have obtained this position and achieve his aspirations and there would have not been a story maybe, or at least things would have been very different and more complicated for him. Marlow’s aunt made matters easier for him, using her influence to get him a job.

Marlow changes a bit his opinion of his aunt when he goes to tell her goodbye and when she tells her nephew that hopefully he will help in civilizing the population of Congo except the fact that she used harsher words, making Marlow “uncomfortable” and labeling his aunt like women in general in Charles’ opinion as out of touch with truth. It is a bit of a critique as Marlow seems against Imperialism so his aunt’s words didn’t really make him happy. Marlow’s aunt also plays a motherly figure to him, worrying about him. She plays her role well as an aunt or a mother.