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Ophelia 
Beyond Awesome
Fiction Moderator
Book Discussion Leader
Joined: 25 Nov 2007
Posts: 1147
Gender: 
Location: France
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 Posted: Sat May 03, 2008 1:06 am Post subject:
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| I think this is the message Marlow gets, yes. |
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Penelope
Amazingly Intelligent
Silver Contributor
Joined: 02 Oct 2007
Posts: 664
Gender:
Location: Cheshire, England
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| Posted: Sat May 03, 2008 5:11 am Post subject:
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Yes, I think you are are right Dwill - Marlow was not admiring of Kurtz but fascinated - I kept thinking of the line from the Joni Mitchell song:-
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| I'm frightened by the Devil and drawn to those ones who aint afraid. |
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Robert Tulip
Freshman
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
Posts: 221
Gender: 
Location: Canberra
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| Posted: Sat May 03, 2008 6:02 am Post subject:
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| Thomas Hood wrote: |
| Isn't 'the horror' that if the darkness can strip the veneer of civilization from one so strong as Kurtz then it can do the same to anyone? Tom |
Hello again Tom, this is a pleasant trawl. Here is my latest theory about Heart of Darkness, building on discussion of fate and horror. Chatting with a friend last night, I commented that the European eruption over the world was like a volcanic eruption, and the colonial invasions were like lava flowing unstoppably. However, and this gets to our earlier free will discussion, lava has an id and no ego, whereas people imagine they direct the path of their lives. Conrad is presenting the Belgian Congo as an inexorable outflowing of the modern id, watched in horror by the ego. The horror is partly the lack of awareness of the forces at work, partly what happened to Africa, partly, as you say, our bond with the thin mask stripped off in Kurtz. |
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Thomas Hood
Intern
Book Discussion Leader
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
Posts: 157
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| Posted: Sat May 03, 2008 7:58 am Post subject:
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I agree, Robert, that the European eruption was foredoomed for both perpetrator and victim and that psychological satisfactions were as important as ivory and rubber. Empires are popular because in in remoter regions of empire the lower class European/American could lord over the natives like a noble.
In Marlow-Conrad's comparison of the Congo invasion to the Roman invasion of Celtic Britain, he invokes the myth of the eternal return, but in taking this philosophical standpoint, he is in effect saying that it is possible for a person who is aware to step outside the course of history and transcend limitations.
Tom |
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Robert Tulip
Freshman
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
Posts: 221
Gender:
Location: Canberra
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| Posted: Sat May 03, 2008 8:45 pm Post subject:
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| Thomas Hood wrote: |
| I agree, Robert, that the European eruption was foredoomed for both perpetrator and victim and that psychological satisfactions were as important as ivory and rubber. Empires are popular because in remoter regions of empire the lower class European/American could lord over the natives like a noble. In Marlow-Conrad's comparison of the Congo invasion to the Roman invasion of Celtic Britain, he invokes the myth of the eternal return, but in taking this philosophical standpoint, he is in effect saying that it is possible for a person who is aware to step outside the course of history and transcend limitations. Tom |
Hi Tom, I hadn’t thought of Conrad’s discussion of Roman Britain explicitly as an idea of eternal return. Does he use that term? Now that you mention it, there is value in exploring the comparison. My own view on eternal return is set out on a recent web thread http://www.bautforum.com/against-mainstream/71649-astronomical-history .html . I link eternal return to astronomy, and the cyclic pattern of the great year. By matching events separated by 2147 years, my view is that the nineteenth century compares well with the time of Alexander’s conquest of Asia and the Hellenistic Empire. This is a highly speculative, but I think interesting, line of enquiry. On my view of eternal return, the USA is now analogous to Rome in 140BC. At that stage, Rome was still a Republic, but had recently sacked Corinth and Carthage to show its imperial potential and might. Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus were preparing to exercise tribunician power on behalf of the Roman people against the leading corporate interests. China was in the seventh decade of the multi-century Han Dynasty. The Roman Empire was over one hundred years in the future. |
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Thomas Hood
Intern
Book Discussion Leader
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
Posts: 157
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| Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 8:44 am Post subject:
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Robert, Marlow doesn't use the term 'eternal return' but the story assumes it:
"Marlow was not typical (if his propensity
to spin yarns be excepted), and to him the meaning of an episode was not
inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it
out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of these
misty halos that sometimes are made visible by the spectral illumination
of moonshine."
('Moonshine' is self-depreciating humor.) I take this to mean that Marlow's
tales are evoked by atmosphere, the spirit of place. And the spirit/history
of the place they are in (Thames estuary) contains the Roman/Belgian identity:
"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is
done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun"
(Ecclesiastes is a meditation on the zodiac).
Memories of the dead inspire creativity.
Was there a Greek or Roman Marlow 2147 years earlier telling tales
of recurrence as the crew waited for the tide to turn? Probably.
Is all recurrence a consequence of the great year? That I'll need to look into.
Tom |
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DWill
Junior
Joined: 31 Jan 2008
Posts: 302
Gender:
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| Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 10:25 pm Post subject:
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| Thomas Hood wrote: |
| Isn't 'the horror' that if the darkness can strip the veneer of civilization from one so strong as Kurtz then it can do the same to anyone? |
Do you see strength in Kurtz? I see him as unusually gifted, with a dangerous charisma, but on the other hand lacking almost totally in moral strength. I think that's why Marlow hates him, hates him until the end, when Kurtz faces himself and what he descended to. The horror is Kurtz's reflection on all that he did. That redeems him in Marlow's eyes. Maybe that is also why he goes to the extreme of visiting the Intended in Brussels.
That leaves the question of how much of Kurtz's descent was brought on by the physical darkness of the jungle; what did the environment have to do with his becoming so brutal? It's not easy for me to see Conrad making this equation between Kurtz's moral decay and some decay inherent in the jungle, but maybe. Marlow himself seems to be fighting off this reaction himself throughout the book. Perhaps it is just that being is so out of his element made Kurtz vulnerable to the urges that had been buried in him.
DWill |
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Thomas Hood
Intern
Book Discussion Leader
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
Posts: 157
Gender:
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| Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 6:46 am Post subject:
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| DWill wrote: |
Do you see strength in Kurtz? I see him as unusually gifted, with a dangerous charisma, but on the other hand lacking almost totally in moral strength. I think that's why Marlow hates him, hates him until the end, when Kurtz faces himself and what he descended to. The horror is Kurtz's reflection on all that he did. That redeems him in Marlow's eyes. Maybe that is also why he goes to the extreme of visiting the Intended in Brussels.
That leaves the question of how much of Kurtz's descent was brought on by the physical darkness of the jungle; what did the environment have to do with his becoming so brutal? It's not easy for me to see Conrad making this equation between Kurtz's moral decay and some decay inherent in the jungle, but maybe. Marlow himself seems to be fighting off this reaction himself throughout the book. Perhaps it is just that being is so out of his element made Kurtz vulnerable to the urges that had been buried in him.
DWill |
Yes, I do see strength in Kurtz. The qualities attributed to him by
the Intended and the harlequin are real. He is the best and the brightest
but has succumbed to the power of environment -- just as Marlow
succumbs to the power of environment on the yawl and tells his story.
>what did the environment have to do with his becoming so brutal?
Kurtz has assimilated. He has absorbed the culture, and that is the
reason for his power over the natives and his success in producing
ivory. He has taken on native morality. His capacity for common
humanity has made him inhumane.
Tom |
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Thomas Hood
Intern
Book Discussion Leader
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
Posts: 157
Gender:
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| Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 7:08 am Post subject:
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In the environment of the Congo, a palisade of skulls around
the Inner Station was not exceptional:
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL2290323220080422
"Lynchings in Congo as penis theft panic hits capital
Tue Apr 22, 2008 1:21pm EDT
KINSHASA (Reuters) - Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.
Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur."
Tom |
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Robert Tulip
Freshman
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
Posts: 221
Gender:
Location: Canberra
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| Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 8:10 am Post subject:
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| DWill wrote: |
| Do you see strength in Kurtz? I see him as unusually gifted, with a dangerous charisma, but on the other hand lacking almost totally in moral strength. I think that's why Marlow hates him, hates him until the end, when Kurtz faces himself and what he descended to. The horror is Kurtz's reflection on all that he did. That redeems him in Marlow's eyes. Maybe that is also why he goes to the extreme of visiting the Intended in Brussels. |
So Kurtz repents of his sins and is forgiven? I am not sure. I said before that “the horror” is the key statement of conscience in the book. However, trying to psychoanalyze Kurtz, it is hard to tell if this statement is an emotional eruption from his unconscious id or a rational product of conscious guilt. I tend towards the former: Kurtz is so wrapped up in buckling his swashes, to the point of pathological piratical madness, that he is incapable of remorse or sorrow, except as self-pity. Repentance is a precondition of forgiveness, by and large, so the question is whether Kurtz really does face himself or just give vent to a broader archetypal statement.
| DWill wrote: |
| That leaves the question of how much of Kurtz's descent was brought on by the physical darkness of the jungle; what did the environment have to do with his becoming so brutal? It's not easy for me to see Conrad making this equation between Kurtz's moral decay and some decay inherent in the jungle, but maybe. Marlow himself seems to be fighting off this reaction himself throughout the book. Perhaps it is just that being is so out of his element made Kurtz vulnerable to the urges that had been buried in him. DWill |
Of course, there is a level at which Kurtz “goes native”. The unholy trinity of imperialism were the missionaries, the mercenaries and the misfits. Kurtz gives us the three in one, incorporating strands of these three perverse European identities. His moral decay arose more from his sending than from his relation to his environment. The decay of the rainforest is part of a cycle of life, while the decay of Kurtz has a much more destructive trajectory. You can’t blame the resilient natural systems of the Congo for their effect on a crazy lost messiah figure who tries to redeem Africa by destroying it. |
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