VIII- HD- Mr Kurtz.

Penelope · Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 10:06 am Post subject:

DWill, Robert Tulip, Ophelia and anyone else who might be interested:

Vis a Vis - doing the wrong thing for the right reasons.

Some years ago I was a fairly active member of Amnesty International.

I used to write letters to Governments and Influencial people about certain political prisoners....then...one evening I went to a meeting where the guest speaker was from Argentina....(just as it happens..Argentina),

He said, not in so many words, but he said, 'Will you stop writing letters and drawing attention to these individuals....because when you do they just get 'disappeared'. (BTW - after they had disappeared - the only way they could be identified in their graves was by their trainers (shoes) - not biodegradable you see. So where do we go on ecology from there?)

However, after this happened, I went into reverse, so to speak. I sat with my head in my hands feeling mortified that I might have contributed to the deaths of the people I was aiming to help. I thought, I am not going to try any more.....I am too ignorant.

Well, I am ignorant.....but I know what is cruel and wrong....I know we may never create a better world.....it is easier for a few evil bods to destroy the endeavours of hundreds of well-meaning folk.

But I still think that the worst thing we can do is to turn our faces to the wall and feel powerless. I feel compelled to speak out when I see, meaningless, blind cruelty.....and if I never achieve anything...so what.

It is wrong.....just wrong, not to speak out. We might.....just might, make a difference.

DWill · Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 10:35 pm Post subject:

Penelope,

When I mentioned "noble intentions," I didn't mean his intention to get rich on ivory (which I don't doubt was his & everyone's true motive), but the "cover story" of bringing enlightenment to a benighted section of the world. I enjoy Marlowe's very biting commentary on this deadly hypocrisy; he saw what was going on with clear eyes. So we can talk about what might be deficient (in the view of some) in Marlowe's portrayal of race and culture, but more than balancing this is his ringing denouncement of both the business and "humanitarian" enterprises of the Europeans.

That was a horrid scene early in the story when Marlowe visits the mining operation. By all evidence, the culture was being wiped out along with a good number of human beings. Where was there any attempt to reform savage customs? So I'm suggesting that in the context of the story, and from Marlowe's point of view, the Society for the Suppression of etc. is a mockery.

Penelope · Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 4:47 am Post subject:

Thanks DWill -

You see, that is the trouble - I read the book and could perceive that Conrad was appalled at the treatment of the natives, and angry at feeling helpless to challenge it....we all know that feeling to some extent in the 21st century.

Also, I understood when it turned out that Kurtz had shrunken heads on the posts around his house.....that Kurtz had 'descended' to the 'savage' level. But in the back of my mind, I know that Conrad is more subtle than this......I am wondering what I am missing and why. Now that is a good thing, I know, except that I am not sure where to look for the answers.

I perish the thought of using those 'students' books which 'tell' you which questions to ask and what the 'correct' answer is in order to pass an examination. I want to ask my own questions - and find my own answers - well I know there is rarely a correct answer - perhaps I should say, find my own replies.

I need your input you guys.......

Robert Tulip · Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 6:39 am Post subject:

George Ricker · Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 11:03 am Post subject:

Kurtz sits at the heart of the darkness in Heart of Darkness. I think Robert is correct that his descent epitomizes the true nature of the colonial enterprise laid bare, stipped of all the euphemisms and pretensions of noble purpose.

But is what happens to Kurtz a descent or an actualization? Do we really think Kurtz lost himself in Africa? Isn't it really the case that there, removed from all restraints, he was free to act in accordance with his own basic nature?

I think that's the real darkness in the story. I also think that's the horror he was forced to confront at the end, the horror of his own self-deception. With his own hands Kurtz had shredded the mask with which he had concealed his own true nature from himself.

So maybe his last "the horror…the horror" was not so much a reaction to what he had seen, or done, or become but was the recognition of what he always had been.

And since Kurtz's character, returning to Robert's point, is emblematic of the colonial enterprise as a whole, his revelation strips away all pretense.

It's not that the colonial effort began with noble intentions and gradually lost its way through the greed and corruption of its agents, but that the enterprise was rotten at its very core from the outset.

The starkness of that message may also explain why Conrad chose to wrap Marlow's narrative in a narrative. It has the effect of softening the story, making it less direct. Perhaps Conrad felt that, like Kurtz's intended, the audience for whom he was writing could not face the plain truth.

One commentator I read wrote that Conrad fretted he had made Kurtz "too symbolic." I think there was reason to fret, but I don't see how he could have done things differently unless he had chosen to write a much longer work. As it is, he wrote an extended short story that has the thematic richness of a novel.

George

Penelope · Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 1:56 pm Post subject:

Thank you George and DWill.

I have been thinking about how easy it is to fall into corruption - it is easy to let go and fall.....like Kurtz.....but hard to climb towards enlightenment. We need to keep a vision in our minds of the enobling of our human nature.

Now, I don't know if I read this....in H G Wells's short story - 'The Country of the Blind', or whether it was in Albert Camus's, 'The Salt People' short story....I know both were wonderful short stories..about a person with an extra piece of knowledge who goes to live among those who do not have that extra piece. At the time it seemed to me, a metaphore for Jesus.....but now I can see it as just humanity and the process of evolution.

I will have to go and read your post again, because there were two things I wanted to comment on.....now I can't remember what the other thing was...... Sad

be back in a minute....

Penelope · Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 2:10 pm Post subject:

Please Miss, George said:-

But is what happens to Kurtz a descent or an actualization? Do we really think Kurtz lost himself in Africa? Isn't it really the case that there, removed from all restraints, he was free to act in accordance with his own basic nature?

Kurtz (and apparently Conrad) did go to the Congo for base purposes...I hate to labour the point....but the seeking of Ivory (or Gold) is a base purpose. Not all of our Colonialists went with such base purposes...some when to trade for something useful.....some went for their Christian beliefs...and I am not saying that this turned out all sweetness and light...but it was at root a noble purpose...and I should tell you I have a friend in Tamil Nadu in Southern India - who is grateful for the Victorian missionaries going there, because they set up colleges and churches. He is now a Professor of Zoology and tells me that he would have been a 'climber of palm trees' to get coconuts if the 'Welsh' missionaries had not gone there and set up the University.

So let us not run ourselves down completely.......the missionaries...some of them....went for selfless reasons. And it can't have been only the East India Tea Company who showed beneficial results to the indigenous people.

Of course, we did not colonise India did we. We 'The British Empire' did not do bad things everywhere.....some were beneficial to the 'natives'....or do some of you erudite people know better? Tell Me.

Ophelia · Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 4:25 pm Post subject:

DWill · Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 9:31 am Post subject:

Penelope and Ophelia,

I felt as I think you did--a sense of anti-climax in the long-awaited appearance of Kurtz. Marlow just doesn't show us much about Kurtz, rather he tells us over and over what a profound effect Kurtz had on him. Marlow says to his audience that it's impossible really to convey what any experience is like on the inside, especially such a weird experience as his in the jungle with Kurtz. So he just asks his listeners to accept on faith that Kurtz had this enormous power. He says that Kurtz's power resided in his voice, which of course he couldn't convey in his story. It seems that Conrad might have calculated that to keep Kurtz shadowy was the best way to ensure that he would be seen as a mysterious force, while to really portray him by his speech would have exposed how impossible it is to substantiate what Marlow sees in Kurtz. I think it might have been a tough choice for C to make.

The relationship between Kurtz and Marlow, and Marlow's whole fascination with Kurtz, are an enigma for me. (For example, why does he sees Kurtz's last words as a victory for Kurtz and admire K. for being able to say them?) The means for me to understand it might well be there, but I haven't found them. Conrad packs his prose pretty densely.

One thing I really like about the novella is its quality of absurdity. The intro to my edition said that Conrad anticipated modernism. The absurd nature of Marlow's experience could be an aspect of modernism. We have the clerk with his starched collars in the middle of the jungle, the "pilgrims" with their staves, the Russian sailor with his parti-colored costume, the two women in black knitting in the antechamber like Greek Fates (I guess). And then there is Marlow's being joined with Kurtz, something he doesn't understand but accepts as his fate. Taking charge of Kurtz, being loyal to him even, is "the nightmare of my choice," where any course of action would be a nightmare. Marlow seems impelled by forces he doesn't understand, right up to visiting Kurtz's Intended. Whether this all works is up to the reader to decide.

I think I can understand why Marlow does not level with the Intended. Earlier in the story he flashed forward to that scene and said the difference between Kurtz's world and the Intended's was just too great, and that the reality of Kurtz would be shattering to her; there was just no point in disillusioning her. At this point in the novella, by the way, Marlow, still affected by illness, appears almost psychotic (voices, hallucinations).

Sorry to run on!

Will

Ophelia · Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 9:48 am Post subject:

DWill wrote:


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