Heart of Darkness

Penelope · Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2008 6:17 pm Post subject:

This book has made me think about all of these things. S'what books should do.

That is why books are valuable.

Now we have the internet to exchange ideas.

But I do insist that 'Mother Nature' in the form of the planet is not so kind and motherly. That is another 'idea' to reject.

As human beings....we have had to fight tooth and nail to make ourselves comfortable.....which is really what it is all about....not being blinded by the stories. Having said that......I am a believer in a higher power, forcing us home. I like churches....I just don't like religion......I have a respect for the people who have used their brains and their brawn to make us more comfortable here. Not just respect - gratitude.

And I keep searching for what it is that is driving us.....to find out what is 'really' valuable.

Now, this is an atheistic website.....prod..prod...

ckopphills

Hi! Ophelia mentioned this site and the discussion on Heart of Darkness.

I skimmed through the previous posts, and I noticed that, while colonialism had been mentioned, race hadn't really been discussed. I wondered what you all thought of Conrad's treatment of race in the novella?

Recently, in one of my high school history classes, I taught Adam Hochschild's nonfiction account of the Congo, King Leopold's Ghost, and Chinua Achebe's novel about the Igbo and colonialism, Things Fall Apart. After we finished both books, I gave the students a review that Achebe wrote of Heart of Darkness. In that review, Achebe argues that Conrad, though perhaps well meaning and literary, was ultimately a racist because he reduced Africa and Africans to mere backdrops.

One of my students read Heart of Darkness and wrote an essay arguing that Conrad's depiction was NOT racist.

What do you think?

And if this is an inappropriate discussion - or in the wrong place - please forgive me and feel free to delete!

Best,
Christina

Ophelia · Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 4:02 am Post subject:

Hello again Christina, and welcome to Booktalk! Smile

Don't worry, your post is at exactly the right place. What you have read in this thread is a pre-discussion, at this stage we're looking for a discussion leader to start things officially.

Thank you for your input, of course the topic of race is relevant.

I don't think Conrad writes in a racist way. The narrator's description conveys a feeling of indignation at the cruelty and brutality of the Europeans-- or do I just assume that the condemnation is there?

Thank you for mentioning Chinua Achebe's review of HD, I think there is a lot of material there that we could use.

Here is a link to the review:Chinua.Achebe, "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness."

.http://social.chass.ncsu.edu/wyrick/debclass/achcon.htm

Robert Tulip · Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 5:04 am Post subject:

Here are some lines that caught my eye from the first half of Heart of Darkness, with page numbers from the Penguin Modern Classics edition reprinted 1980.

1. What greatness had not floated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth! … The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empires. P7
2. They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force … The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. P10
3. The snake had charmed me. P12
4. …engaged in the noble cause, you know, and he probably felt the need at last of asserting his self-respect in some way. Therefore he whacked the old nigger mercilessly
5. The supernatural being had not been touched after he fell. P13
6. They were going to run an over-sea empire and make no end of coin by trade p14
7. vast amount of red, good to see at any time, because one knows that some real work is done in there, a deuce of a lot of blue, a little green, smears of orange, and on the East Coast, a purple patch p14
8. pale plumpness in a frock coat. The great man himself. P15
9. She talked about ‘weaning those ignorant millions from their horrid ways’ p18
10. I felt as though instead of going to the centre of a continent I were about to set off for the centre of the earth p18
11. a man-of-war… shelling the bush
12. places with farcical names where the merry dance of death and trade goes on
13. speaking English with great precision and considerable bitterness
14. each had an iron collar on his neck, and all were connected together with a chain whose bights swung between them, rhythmically clinking 22
15. the outraged law, like the bursting shells, had come to them , an insoluble mystery from the sea 23
16. a flabby pretending weak eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly 23
17. black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom 24
18. a white man in such an unexpected elegance of get-up that in the first moment I took him for a sort of vision p25
19. you will no doubt meet Mr Kurtz 27
20. the silent wilderness surrounding this cleared speck on the earth struck me as something great and invincible, like evil or truth p33
21. a prodigy … an emissary of pity and science and progress 36
22. transgression - punishment – bang! Pitiless 37
23. flavour of mortality in lies which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world 39
24. we live, as we dream – alone 39
25. sordid buccaneers: reckless without hardihood, greedy without audacity, and cruel without courage, not an atom of foresight or of serious intention in the whole batch 43
26. Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. 48
27. stillness of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention 48
28. inner truth is hidden, luckily, luckily, but I felt it all the same 49

Penelope · Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 10:18 am Post subject:

Well of course I thought the novel racist. I think we were a bloomin racist nation in those days. What about Kipling?

They did not encounter many black people in the West in those days - and in their own countries the natives lived more primitively than we did, so we thought them inferior. Rubbish of course!

We have learned from our encounters with them, that they are just as intelligent (or not) as we are (or not). Good and Bad people....but we needed people like Hariet Beecher Stowe to point out our own ignorance and cruelty.

Shakespeare was very nasty about the Jews as was Dickens.....but the holocaust had not happened then. Jane Austen treats the servants and lower classes, in her novels, in the same way as Conrad treats the natives. They are just part of the scenery - no personalities allotted to them.

Give us a break then, we have progressed a bit.

Mr. Pessimistic · Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 12:09 pm Post subject:

Robert Tulip · Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 3:48 pm Post subject:

Ophelia · Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 4:19 pm Post subject:

Robert wrote:

Ophelia · Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 4:35 pm Post subject:

Robert writes that the outcome of colonialism in Africa is a disaster, and I agree with the very interesting analysis he gives.

I find it impossible to make up my mind on the following question:

On French television, we sometimes see interviews of Africans (ordinary people in the street) who express their anger at France and think the French (or their government) still behave as if they owned the place.
I lack information about the present, but they obviously have every right to be outraged about the past.

On the other hand (and here again Robert's analysis is very helpful) I am angry at people like Mugabe, and worried to see that African leaders like Thabo Mbeke, who had such a wonderful democrat as a mentor, prefer to stick with him, come what may.
In a way I understand that they may feel that anything is better than "advice" from the Europeans, who lost all credibility a long time ago.
It makes 100 % sense from the point of view of the leaders, but what about the people who are languishing in Mugabe's jails, has anybody asked them what they think and whether they are glad of the show of solidarity to Mugabe from African nations?

As a European, I think I should be quiet for historical reasons, but do we have the right to keep quiet?

Also, the awful aspect of the dilemma is that Europeans are disqualified for historical reasons, but I wonder whether other nations in the world may not, sadly, care even less about the problem (because they have no historical or linguistic ties with those nations, which are therefore rarely known to the general public).

Penelope · Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 6:18 pm Post subject:

Robert and Ophelia - you both have a much firmer grasp of the current situation in Africa, than I.

I haven't ever considered the question of decolonisation and its problems. I suppose because when India gained independence and - the British withdrew - we seemed to be viewed, in retrospect , with very little animosity.

I have read both of your posts carefully and consideringly, but I don't think I can come to any conclusion. The whole nature of Africa is not like the situation in India was. India I have read about and considered. I find the Africa problem too huge to contemplate.

I can give you an opinion on Conrad though. Yes, I think he was racist - but that was just an accepted way of behaving and thinking then. Today we are appauled, although I am sure even then, they knew when they were being downright cruel And not just behaving in ignorance. He accepted exploitation of the native people - because that is just how it was at that point in history. The working class in this country at the time were exploited also. But there is plenty of evidence in the book to show that he would never advocate heartless cruelty.

My posts sound simplistic compared to your well-worded and well researched ones, I am aware of that - but I hope you will indulge a less academic forum member.....

Ophelia · Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 6:31 pm Post subject:

Please don't see it like this Penelope, we all value your input, and it's a pleasure to be getting to know you.

Robert Tulip · Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 11:32 pm Post subject:

Ophelia · Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2008 12:34 am Post subject:

Robert wrote:

Ophelia · Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2008 12:39 am Post subject: cancelled


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