Conrad

1
Conrads Heart of Darkness

• ENGL 203
• Dr. Fike

2
Handout on Modernism

• Be sure to read the handout I sent on Modernism.
• Note Heart Of Darkness is NOT stream of
  consciousness!

3
Modernism in HoD

• What principles of modernism are at work in
  Conrads novel?
• Primitivism
• 1643/135 Going up that river.
• 1645/137 we were traveling.
• 1655-56/147-78 how can you imagine.

4
Another Principle of Modernism

• The unconscious mind
• 1645/137 The collective unconscious (Jung)
  The mind of man is capable of anything.
• 1638/130, top par. Reference to dreams It
  seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream.
• Dramatization of the psyche (Freud)
• Superego Europe
• Ego Marlow
• Id Africa
• Points
• Marlow has to mediate between competing extremes.
• The trip enacts this psychomachia, as well as a
  descent into the unconscious mind.
• Experiences become more dream-like as the voyage
  progresses.

5
Ways of Responding to the Unconscious

• Ignore darkness of the unconscious mind
• 1630/122 Accountant (oblivious)
• 1633/125 Manager (hollow)
• Be overcome by the unconscious mind
• 1673/165 True, he had made that last stride.
• Be aware of it but resist it with the help of
  work
• 1673/165 Since I had peeped over the edge
  myself.
• Melville, Moby Dick Look not too long into the
  fire, O man!but do look!

6
Conrads Inversion of Freuds Triad

• Here is what one assumes
• Superego Europe (self-restraint)
• Ego Marlow (attracted to both)
• Id Africa (barbarity)

7
Deconstruction

• Key Characteristics
• Contradiction, not paradox
• Separating a word from its referent
• Conflating or reversing binary oppositions

8
Key Details

• 1656/148 All Europe contributed to the making
  of Kurtz.
• 1657/149 He had no restraint.
• 1662-63/154-55 Mr. Kurtzs methods had ruined
  the district.
• 1649/141 Why in the name of all the gnawing
  devils.
• What point emerges (next slide)?

9
Heres the Point

• Superego Africa (self-restraint)
• Ego Marlow (attracted to both)
• Id Europe (barbarity)
• The primitive people are more self-restrained
  than the Europeans. Conrads novel deconstructs
  Freuds triad.

10
Deconstruction Contradiction

• 1623/115 whited sepulchre (cf. Matthew
  2327) tombs should be dark
• 1634/126 faithless pilgrims pilgrims should
  have faith
• Kurtz tall guy with a name that means short
• He was just a word for me (1638/130)
  signification is arbitrary.
• Kurtz German, short (1664/156).
• He looked at least seven feet long (next line).

11
Setting and Narration

• On a yawl in the Thames estuary (interminable
  waterway, 1618/110 a waterway leading to the
  uttermost ends of the earth, 1619/111).
• We have an accountant and a manager on the yacht
  in anticipation of the accountant and manager we
  meet later on.
• Sense of human solidarity.
• The narrator is one of Marlows listeners one
  of Marlows inconclusive experiences (1621/113).
• Marlow looks yellow on 1618/110cf. 1624/116 I
  was going into the yellow (on a map).

12
Question

• What details suggest that this will be a tale of
  darkness?
• Take a few minutes and work with a partner to
  locate suggestive details on the novels first 3
  pages. What things suggest literal or moral
  darkness?

13
A Tale of Darkness

• Gravesend (1618/110)
• the sun sank low (1619/111)
• Erebus and Terror
• the monstrous town (1619/111)
• a brooding gloom (1619/111)
• And this also, said Marlow suddenly, has been
  one of the dark places of the earth (1619/111).
• Romans (1620/112) Although civilization makes
  progress, the human heart stays the same. But
  darkness was here yesterday.

14
Next Activity

• 5 minutes
• Discuss the end of paragraph 1 on page 1620/112
  The yarns of seamen to the spectral
  illumination of moonshine.
• Do this in connection with 1638/130 It seems
  to me I am trying to tell you a dream.
• What points emerge?

15
Points

• Two types of tales
• Manifest content (nut) vs. latent content
  (moonshine)
• The difficulty of communicating the experience
• As regards the unconscious and the primitive,
  Marlow journeys into a nonverbal realm.
• Fog image of obfuscation (1650/142) the
  blind whiteness of the fog

16
Marlows Stops on His Voyage

• He visits his aunt and then crosses the English
  channel (1623/115).
• First stop the sepulchral city (1623/115ff.)
• Visits company office (1623/115-1624/116)
• Sees the two knitting women (1624/116)
• The three fates Clotho spins, Lachesis
  measures, and Atropos cuts.
• We know that Marlow will survive because Atropos
  is not there. The journey will not cut short his
  life.
• Visits the doctor/phrenologist (1625/117) the
  changes take place insidei.e., a psychological
  journey

17
Marlows Journey

• He returns to say goodbye to his aunt
  (1625-26/117-18)
• Says negative stuff about women on 1626/118
  Its queer how out of touch with truth women
  are.

18
Man-of-war

• 1627/119 Marlow sees a man-of-war firing into a
  continentshelling the bush.
• This is an image of futility parallel to the
  following things
• a hole in the bottom of his pail (1633/127)
• Making bricks without straw (1633/127)
• The so-called faithless pilgrims (1634/126)
  fire into the bush on 1652/144.

19
Outer Station

• 30 miles up the river, he meets the accountant on
  1630/122.

20
Central Station

• Marlow meets the manager and brick maker
  (1633/125).
• 1637/129 this papier-mâché Mephistopheles
• This is also where Marlow gets his boat.
• 1640/132 The Eldorado Exploring Expedition
  passes through.
• What is the significance of the EEE?

21
En Route

• Marlow
• Finds Towsons book (1646/138)
• Loses his helmsman (1653/145)
• Remembers Kurtzs report (1656/148)
• And meets the Russian, who looked like a
  harlequin (1658/150).

22
Inner Station

• Marlow meets Kurtz.

23
Key Details

• 1624/116 Dead in the centre.
• 1626/118 the centre of the earth
• 1627/119 catacomb
• 1629/121 the gloomy circle of some Inferno
• 1631/123 the very bottom of there
• 1653/145 death of the helmsman
• 1655/147 He had taken a high seat amongst the
  devils of the landI mean literally.
• What is the point of these details?

24
Answer

• Marlows journey is like a descent into hell.
• Aeneas loses his helmsman on the way to the
  underworld.
• In the Inferno, Satan is frozen in the ice at the
  bottom. If Kurtz is at the very bottom of
  there, then Kurtz Satan.
• The difficulty of returning 1641-42/133-34
  hell is easy to enter but difficult to return
  from.
• Hell in literature is both a physical place and a
  psychological stateand so it is in Conrads
  novel as well.
• The farther Marlow goes up the river, the more
  intense the experience becomes parallel to
  descending into the Inferno.

25
Dantes Hell

• http//www.italnet.nd.edu/Dante/images/tp1595/1595
  .diag.175dpi.jpeg
• http//www.italnet.nd.edu/Dante/images/tp1515/1515
  .wc1.150dpi.jpeg
• http//jade.ccccd.edu/Andrade/WorldLitI2332/Dante/
  OverviewofHell.jpg

26
Questions for Day 2

1. References to women appear on 1623, 1624, 1626,
   1630, 1655, 1665, 1671, and 1675ff.  Do you agree
   with Johanna M. Smith that "the whole of his
   Marlow's story is seen to be a manful effort to
   shore up imperialism through patriarchy, through
   the nineteenth-century ideology of separate
   spheres"?  (The quotation is from her essay "'Too
   Beautiful Altogether'  Patriarchal Ideology in
   Heart of Darkness.)
2. According to Marlow, how does one overcome
   darkness? 
3. What do you make of Kurtz's report on 1656-57?
4. What does the presence of the Russian add in
   section III (1658ff.)? 
5. What do you make of "The horror!" on 1672?  What
   does Kurtz mean?  Is Marlow right to call it "a
   moral victory on 1673?
6. Marlow lies to Kurtz's fiancée, the Intended.
    What do you make of this?
7. What has Marlow learned from his experience?