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Ophelia, I have no idea where the "Introduce Yourself" thread is, so
I will do so here.
66, unmarried, Wyse Fork, NC, BA literature, veteran, theory of meaning,
Chinese metaphysics, Walden. I have done origin research on King Wen's
sequence and the composition of the Dao De Jing.
I believe that the humanities make us humane and that Ophelia
(in Hamlet) dies because her feminine sanity blocked the descent
of the play into foredoomed chaos.
I was in Eritrea in the early 60's and have a firsthand experience of
The Heart of Darkness -- disease, corruption, brutality, starvation, . . . .
but that was then and this is now.
I'm right about Conrad's deficiency with female characters, aren't I?
I really don't know.
Ophelia, I have no idea where the "Introduce Yourself" thread is, so I will do so here. 66, unmarried, Wyse Fork, NC, BA literature, veteran, theory of meaning, Chinese metaphysics, Walden. I have done origin research on King Wen's sequence and the composition of the Dao De Jing. I believe that the humanities make us humane and that Ophelia (in Hamlet) dies because her feminine sanity blocked the descent of the play into foredoomed chaos. I was in Eritrea in the early 60's and have a firsthand experience of The Heart of Darkness -- disease, corruption, brutality, starvation, . . . . but that was then and this is now. I'm right about Conrad's deficiency with female characters, aren't I? I really don't know. Tom
Hello Thomas, welcome, and thank you for finding this thread. We had a good discussion about Heart of Darkness, and could usefully review it, especially this theme of Conrad’s relation to the feminine. You seem to be saying that the lack of feminine restraint in European colonialism was a factor in the tragedy of the Congo and Africa more broadly. I confess I have not studied Hamlet closely, but you are right that it is an archetype of foredoomed chaos, and that this theme broods around Heart of Darkness too. In Hamlet, was Ophelia perhaps like a protestor before a tank, standing against big historical forces? The only other Conrad book I have read is The Secret Agent, in which the wife is bewildered before the high deluded politics of her secretive husband.
I am interested in your comment ‘that was then and this is now’ given Conrad is writing more than a century ago and you were in Eritrea 45 years ago…
What is King Wen’s sequence? I think of Conrad’s use of the Thames and the Congo in a Taoist way. There is this sense in which an inevitable destiny is working itself out, with Kurtz its ugly manifestation.
Is Kurtz like Lear? Does his beloved have anything of a Cordelia or Goneril or Regen about her? Was Europe’s invasion the Tao of the Congo, or an aberrant infliction that could have been otherwise?
Sorry I missed the discussion, Robert. I came here following the trail of Sakis Totlis, whose book _The True Eye of the Tiger_ (available as a free download) I admire.
>You seem to be saying that the lack of feminine restraint in European colonialism was a factor in the tragedy of the Congo and Africa more broadly.
Let's say empathetic awareness. I think the controlling forces were more fundamental than greed. Kurtz is multi-talented, charismatic, an ideal of western culture, but when tested by solitude (alone with his self), " he was hollow at the core. . . ." This inner absence of being is the viewpoint of Dark Romanticism. It is a metaphysical position, and that is why I think Conrad had to discount the feminine in what appears to me to be a war with the feminine aspect of himself.
Ophelia was driven to suicide by the irrationality of the world around her.
>There is this sense in which an inevitable destiny is working itself out, with Kurtz its ugly manifestation.
Some believe that "The Heart of Darkness" was prophetic of the coming world war.
>Was Europe’s invasion the Tao of the Congo, or an aberrant infliction that could have been otherwise?
My opinion is that we are actors in the Play of History but don't write the script. Considering how unaware we are of ourselves, I don't see how events could have been otherwise.
Sorry I missed the discussion, Robert. I came here following the trail of Sakis Totlis, whose book _The True Eye of the Tiger_ (available as a free download) I admire. See the King Wen sequence at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexagram_(I_Ching) >You seem to be saying that the lack of feminine restraint in European colonialism was a factor in the tragedy of the Congo and Africa more broadly. Let's say empathetic awareness. I think the controlling forces were more fundamental than greed. Kurtz is multi-talented, charismatic, an ideal of western culture, but when tested by solitude (alone with his self), " he was hollow at the core. . . ." This inner absence of being is the viewpoint of Dark Romanticism. It is a metaphysical position, and that is why I think Conrad had to discount the feminine in what appears to me to be a war with the feminine aspect of himself. Ophelia was driven to suicide by the irrationality of the world around her. >There is this sense in which an inevitable destiny is working itself out, with Kurtz its ugly manifestation. Some believe that "The Heart of Darkness" was prophetic of the coming world war. >Was Europe’s invasion the Tao of the Congo, or an aberrant infliction that could have been otherwise? My opinion is that we are actors in the Play of History but don't write the script. Considering how unaware we are of ourselves, I don't see how events could have been otherwise. Tom
Hi Tom, I like your idea of Conrad as fatalistic. Your comment on the Play of History is interesting, in that the self image of European Civilization was of controlling and subduing nature, and fate is infuriating to the rationalist project. Conrad drew attention to the absurdity of this impiety towards fate, which has roots in the Bible and Plato. The listless shelling of the wilderness is one example of Conrad’s ironic treatment of the western mind, but that is just an introduction to Kurtz where the insanity of Genesis is revealed in full gory glory. In Genesis 1:28 God said to Adam and Eve, "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it.” To my interpretation, this toxic idea of dominion as the image of God was the start of the fall towards modern alienation as depicted in Heart of Darkness. King Leopold of Belgium thought he wrote the script, and Kurtz was his strange puppet dancing to a perverse set of strings. Conrad seems to present old Tao Congo as more powerful than the colonialists. The ‘Dark Romantic’ reminds me of Nietzsche’s line that God is Dead, and the various strands of nihilism. I don’t think Conrad is at war with the feminine, but rather is somehow representing the feminine in a mockery of masculine conquest. I found the Sakis Toklis commentary on the I Ching at [url]http://www.sakistotlis.gr/english/c.%20philosophy/c.2%20i%20ching /a%20text(s)%20i%20ching.htm[/url]
>Hi Tom, I like your idea of Conrad as fatalistic.
As I read Conrad: History can't be helped because we possess a dark (yin: feminine) center, an Inner Station within our hearts of darkness, that is beyond rational (yang: masculine) control -- Freud's view of the unconscious.
>Your comment on the Play of History is interesting, in that the self image of European Civilization was of controlling and subduing nature, and fate is infuriating to the rationalist project. Conrad drew attention to the absurdity of this impiety towards fate, which has roots in the Bible and Plato. The listless shelling of the wilderness is one example of Conrad’s ironic treatment of the western mind, but that is just an introduction to Kurtz where the insanity of Genesis is revealed in full gory glory. In Genesis 1:28 God said to Adam and Eve, "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it.” To my interpretation, this toxic idea of dominion as the image of God was the start of the fall towards modern alienation as depicted in Heart of Darkness.
I would say, Robert, that indeed Genesis has been used as an invitation to the destruction of nature, yet the ideal implicit in Genesis is the opposite: Genesis begins with creation, an invocation of the dark center, which man as an image of God is to follow (In the beginning God created. . .). Conrad's creative power arises from the darkness within himself.
God sees what He has made (wild nature) and says that it is good. Implicitly, it shouldn't be destroyed or 'harvested', and it is not the locus of evil (the home of the dark man in Hawthorne, the serpent-man in Genesis). Then, too, Adam and Eve (or Tarzan and Jane in modern adaptation) initially live at one with the animals, the emblems of human passion. The fall is a fall from 'jungle as friend' to 'jungle as enemy' and a loss of self awareness.
'Going native', the power of wilderness to strip off the veneer of civilization, is a common theme (Typee, Lord of the Flies). Crusoe sustained European ideals perhaps because, until he had hardened himself, he was totally alone.
>King Leopold of Belgium thought he wrote the script, and Kurtz was his strange puppet dancing to a perverse set of strings. Conrad seems to present old Tao Congo as more powerful than the colonialists. The ‘Dark Romantic’ reminds me of Nietzsche’s line that God is Dead, and the various strands of nihilism.
Leopold seems especially evil only because he was caught late in the game by the corrective force of reports like The Heart of Darkness and The Casement Report. He wasn't much different from colonizers throughout history. He only reduced the population of the Congo by half. Frequently colonists exterminate and replace.
>I don’t think Conrad is at war with the feminine, but rather is somehow representing the feminine in a mockery of masculine conquest.
Look at _Amy Foster_, available at Gutenberg. There is also a defense of Conrad's women at
[PDF] 1 Conrad, Women, and the Critics - Apr 27File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat
Conrad, Women, and the Critics. Nothing is more familiar to readers of Joseph Conrad than the. image of the author as a lonely seafarer, drawing on the mem- ...
www.oup.co.uk/pdf/0-19-818448-4.pdf
About _The True Eye of the Tiger_, Sakis is a member here but doesn't believe in tooting his own horn, and his book has been unjustly neglected. I have his permission to publicize it.
