Heart of Darkness

10/17/2007

A: "Besides holding our hearts together through long periods of separation, it has the effect of making us tolerant of each other's yarns - and even convictions." Pg. 3-4

I: The narrator feels a bond with the sea. There is a connection with nature. There is a sense of peace with the sea. Can infer that the speaker went through some rough things because he says that only the sea made them tolerant of each other's yarn, can mean that they have been involved in something that may of been wrong.

A: "The day was ending in a serenity of still and exquisite brilliance. The water shone pacifically; the sky, without a speck, was a benign immensity of unstained light; the very mist of the Essex marsh was like a gauzy and radiant fabric, hung from the wooden rises inland, and draping the low shores in diaphanous folds." Pg. 4

I: There is more signs of closeness and peace with nature. The way that the author uses imagery to describe a scene has much emphasis on the natural surroundings. The closeness with the sea is also being emphasized, since the men are sailing a boat.

A: "Land in a swamp, march through the woods, and in some inland post feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round him - all that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men." Pg.8

I: The first mentioning of savage nature. The jungle is considered savage according to the men because of the wilderness and because there is no "civilization". Marlow is telling the narrator of the story and other men about his experience when he wanted to discover places around the world and travel around. Marlow's understanding of the jungle and the people is of being savage because he sees the Africans as animals in the wild.

A: "The fascination, too, that goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abomination - you know, imagine growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust, the surrender, the hate." Pg.8

I: Marlow recounts the story of how the Roman people were the first to settle in the regions of the wilderness in Africa. He talks about the men's concern, since at this time there was a wild and savage world in which civilized men could not find food and were stricken by disease and death. There is some sort of rising hate toward the wilderness because of its mystery and man's inferiority to it for survival.

A: "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." Pg. 9

I: Marlow starts to realize how the European people have discriminated and abused the people that originally live in the wilderness. Their land had been taken away from them and forced labor as a slave was enforced cruelly.

A: "Therefore he whacked the old nigger mercilessly,. . . . Pg. 13

I: Marlow tells the story of how a captain of the company he wanted to work with was killed by black villagers. The quarrel arose from a misunderstanding about some hens. Fresleven, the captain thought himself wronged in the bargain, so he went ashore and started to hammer the chief of the village with a stick. He was supposedly the gentlest, quietest creature that ever walked on two legs but Marlow was not surprised by his action. Fresleven had been engaged in a noble cause for a couple of years and probably felt the need at last of asserting his self-respect in some way. Therefore he whacked the chief while a big crowd of his people watched him thunderstruck, till some man made a tentative jab with a spear at the white man and it went quite easy between the shoulder-blades. This happening may show that no matter how noble a white person may be in this time period, they still felt superior to the black people and so thought they could do what they want.


10/18/07

A: "She talked about 'weaning those ignorant millions from their horrid ways,' till upon my word, she made me quite uncomfortable. I ventured to hint that the Company was run for profit." Pg. 18-19

I: Marlow was talking to the wife of dignitary of the company that was going to hire him. She explained that the labourer is worthy of his hire. The fact that this woman is in the high class gives the clue that she believes in racial and social standards in this time period. Marlow is ignorant of the situation and so says how this company only runs to make profit, no matter what had to be done, in this instance, 'weaning' the natives from their 'horrid' ways.

A: "There was a touch of insanity in the proceeding, a sense of lugubrious drollery in the sight; and it was not dissipated by somebody on board assuring me earnestly there was a camp of natives - he called them enemies! - hidden out of sight somewhere." Pg. 21

I: Marlow tells of when he was sailing and came close to a place where natives live. His ignorance is shown by the way he does not know how racist the other white men are to the natives. He does not really understand the situation. Marlow may be brainwashed to think that he is superior to the natives as well.

10/19/07

A: "A lot of people, mostly black and naked, moved about like ants." Pg. 23

I: Marlow describes the natives as looking like ants. It demonstrates how he himself, although he may not be racist describes what he sees and views the natives as animals instead of human beings.

A: "They passed me within six inches, without a glance, with that complete, deathlike indifference of unhappy savages." Pg. 24

I: Marlow is so ignorant about the natives' feelings that he does not understand that the natives are being abused by people that look like him. It is not that the natives would want to be dis respective, it is that they have been oppresses and abused by the white colonists. Marlow's ignorance about the situation is still apparent.

10/20/07

A: "They were dying slowly - it was clear. they were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthy now - nothing by black shadows of decease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom." Pg. 26

I: Marlow is finally presented to the conditions in which the natives are forced to live. He is greatly impacted, saying that they are almost not even human beings any more. He shows a sense of confusion as to why this is happening. Marlow's ignorance is evident.

A: "He had tied a bit of a white worsted round his neck - Why? Where did he get it? Was it a badge - an ornament - a charm - a propitiatory act? Was there any idea at all connected with it? It looked startling round his black neck, this bit of white tread from beyond the seas." Pg. 27

I: Marlow does not understand the tradition of the natives. Since he is new to this place and was used to the way that the people surrounding him dressed, he was not used to the way that the natives dressed. In this case, he did not know why a native was wearing a white necklace.

A: "When near the buildings I met a white man, in such an unexpected elegance of getup that in the first moment I took him for a sort of vision. I saw a high starched collar, white cuffs, a light alpaca jacket, snowy trousers, a clean necktie, and varnished boots. No hat. Hair parted, brushed, oiled, under a green-lined parasol held in a big white hand. H was amazing, and had a penholder in his ear."

I: After Marlow had observed all the natives suffering of weakness, when he saw this white man, he even thought he was an illusion because of the way he dressed. This shows that Marlow was so used to his society's ways that after seeing a distinct way of dressing, the white man looked like some sort of king. Marlow observed him with great admiration in comparison with the natives. Marlow shook hands with him and learned that he was the Company's chief accountant.

A: "Moreover, I respected the fellow. Yes; I respected his collars, his vast cuffs, his brushed hair. His appearance was certainly that of a hairdresser's dummy; but in the great demoralization of the land he dept up his appearance. That's backbone. His starched collars and got-up shirt-fronts were achievements of character. He had been out nearly three years; and later, I could not help asking him how he managed to sport such linen."

I: Marlow states that the way in which the accountant dresses does not make sense in the place in which he was, the jungle. He was dressed with luxurious clothes but was in the jungle where all the natives lived, where luxurious clothes may not even be valued. But Marlow still states that he respects the man. Marlow made his description to the accountant a little similar to that of the native he gave some bread. He restated how both men had been wearing some sort of collar.

10/21/07

A: "When one has to make correct entries, one comes to hate those savages - hate them to death." Pg. 30

I: Here the accountant of Mr. Kurtz is talking to Marlow. There is a native moaning near by because he had been badly beaten. The accountant complains that the native distracted him and so hated him because it could make him write wrong entries. The native was beaten so badly that it would seem he was almost dead.

A: "Well, if a lot of mysterious niggers armed with all kinds of fearful weapons suddenly took to travelling on the road between Deal and Gravesend, catching the yokels right and left to carry heavy loads for them, I fancy every farm and cottage thereabouts would get empty very soon." Pg. 31

I: Marlow has seen some villages that were abandoned. He predicts that if the natives had their own sevants to carry things for them, everyone would flee. Marlow is kind of explaining the effects of imperialism against the natives.

A: "The word 'ivory' rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed. You would think they were praying to it." Pg. 37

I: Here Marlow realizes that the whole purpose of travelling to Africa is for profit. Everyone just wants to get as much ivory or anything else of value as they can to earn large amounts of income. The way Marlow uses hyperbole to describe this kind of obsession with ivory shows how the imperialists did not care of anything but money.

A: "And outside, the silent wilderness surrounding this cleared speck on the earth struck me as something great and invincible, like evil or truth, waiting patiently for the passing away of this fantastic invasion." Pg. 37

I: Marlow thinks that the imperialist have abused nature and the wilderness and so nature would soon act on the invading imperialist. It gives the sensation of suspense in the novel.

10/22/07

A: "It was as unreal as everything else - as the philanthropic pretence of the whole concern, as their talk, as their government, as their show of work. the only real feeling was a desire to get appointed to a trading-post where ivory was to be had, so that they could earn percentages. they intrigued and slandered and hated each other only on that account - but as to effectually lifting a finger - oh, no." Pg. 39

I: Marlow keeps describing the imperialist's obsession with gaining money. He tells that some os them even hated themselves for doing it because they would need to compete for the most gains. Marlow seemed like he had no idea what had been taking place in Africa until he worked there.

A: "Serve him right. Transgression - punishment - bang! Pitiless, pitiless. That's the only way. This will prevent all conflagrations for the future." Pg. 42

I: This was a man that appeared while Marlow was talking to someone else. There was a beaten native that was moaning. It is evident that the imperialist did not even think the natives were human beings because they would teat them with violence and abuse so that they would not make a rebellion against them.

A: "You know I hate, detest, and can't bear a lie, not because I am straighter than the rest of us, but simply because it appalls me. There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in lies - which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world - what I want to forget. It makes me miserable and sick, like biting something rotten would do." Pg. 44

I: Marlow feel himself so loyal to Kurtz that he would even lie for him even though he had not met him in person yet. It is a large commitment for Marlow because he explains how much he detests lies and liers.

A: Change of narration from Marlow to the real Narrator of the story Pg. 44

I: The effect is that the narrator can explain what Marlow's feelings are. Although Marlow tells the majority of the story in the novel he is not the novel's narrator. It makes the reader get confused if he or she is not paying close attention to who is talking.

10/23/07

A: "I don't like work - no man does - but I like what is in the work - the chance to find yourself. Your own reality - for yourself, no for the others - what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really means." Pg. 47

I: Here Marlow talks about how he feels his steamer boat can be a better friend than the other men around. He said 'she' (the boat) had given him a chance to come out a bit - to find out what he is capable of doing. He says that only the he himself can know what he is capable of doing, other men do not have to tell him, and that is what he likes about work.

10/24/07

A: "'We will not be free from unfair competition till one of these fellows is hanged for an example," he said. 'Certainly,' grunted the other; 'get him hanged! Why not? Anything - anything can be done in this country. That's what I say; nobody here, you understand, here, can endanger you position. And why? You stand the climate - you outlast them all. The danger is in Europe; but there before I left I took care to -'" Pg. 53

I: Here Marlow overhears his manager and the uncle's conversation. Apparently there was someone who was winning all the competition. The manager suggests hanging someone for examle, which means that he would use violence if it would be necessary.

A: "'he bothered me enough when he was here. "Each station should be like a beacon on the road toward better things, a centre for trading of course, but also for humanizing, improving, instructing." Conceive you - that ass! And he wants to be manager. No it's -"' Pg. 54

I: Here, the manager and his uncle still talk about the man that had been winning the competition. It can be infered that he was a man that believed in progress because he talked about humanizing and improving. It is evident that the manager strongly opposed that idea. It is probably because he is too racist.

10/25/07

A: "And after all, they did not eat each other before my face: they had brought a long provision of hippo-meat which went rotten, and made the mystery of the wilderness stink in my nostrils. Phoo!" Pg. 57

I: Marlow has his stereotyipical view of the natives as cannibals. He said that the only reason why they had not eaten themselves was because they some rotten hippo meat. Here he may realize how terrible conditions were for them that they are even forced to eat unedible food.

A: "We penetrated deeper and deeper to the heart of darkness." Pg. 58

I: The title of the book is used in this sentence. It is a reference to the jungle and the wilderness. The heart of darkness is probably also the revenge that the wilderness can get on the men. It is also possible to be a heart of darkness because it has not been civilezed to according to western ideology.

A: "They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity - like yours - the thought of you remote kinship with this wild passionate uproar. Ugly." Pg. 59

I: Marlow explains how he is surprised to know that the natives are actual human beings because from his stand point, they did not act like it. Marlow's resistance to view things differently and not as how they appear to him is evident here.

10/26/07

A: "Very well; I hear; I admit, but I have a voice too, and for good or evil mine is the speech that cannot be silenced." Pg. 60

I: Here Marlow explains how people like him who are new to this new world do not know the reality of what is happening. He explains how they would act like they are focused on their work. He would like to have the courage to stand up to his voice even if it would mean for him to be in serious conflict.

A: "Not a very enthralling book; but at first glance you could see there a singleness of intention, an honest concern for the right way of going to work, which made these humble pages, thought out so many years ago, luminous with another than a professional light." Pg. 63

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A: "I slipped the book into my pocket. I assure you to leave a reading was like tearing myself away from the shelter of an old and solid friendship." Pg. 63

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A: "Why in the name of all gnawing devils of hunger they didn't go for us - they were thirty to five - and have a good tuck-in for once, amazes me now when I think of it. They were big powerful men, with not much capacity to weigh the consequences, with courage, with strength, even yet, though their skins were no longer glossy and their muscles no longer hard." Pg. 69

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A: "It takes a man all his inborn strength to fight hunger properly. It's really easier to face bereavement, dishonour, and the perdition of one's soul than this kind of prolonged hunger."
Pg. 70

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10/27/07

A: "The food nigger had dropped everything, to throw the shutter open and let off that Martini-Henry. He stood before the wide opening, glaring, and I yelled at him to come back, while I straightened the sudden twist out of that steamboat." Pg. 76

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A: "It was the shaft of a spear that, either thrown or longed through the opening, had caught him in the side just below the ribs; the blade had gone out of sight, after making a frightful gash, my shoes were full; a pool of blood lay very still, gleaming dark-red under the wheel; his eyes shown with an amazing lustre." Pg. 77

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A: "He looked at me anxiously, gripping the spear like something precious, with an air of being afraid I would try to take it away from him." Pg. 77

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10/29/07

A: "I declare it looked as though he would presently put us some question in an understandable language; but he died without uttering a sound, without moving a limb, without twitching a muscle. Only in the very last moment, as though in a response to some sign we could not see, to some whisper we could not hear, he frowned heavily, and that frown gave to his black death-mask an inconceivably sombre, brooding, and menacing expression." Pg. 78

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A: "To tell you the truth, I was morbidly anxious to change my shoes and socks. 'He is dead,' murmured the fellow, immensely impressed. 'No doubt about it,' said I, tuggling like mad at the shoe-laces. 'And by the way, I suppose Mr. Kurtz is dead as well by this time."' Pg. 78

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A: "The point was in his being a gifted creature, and that of all his gifts the one that stood out preeminently, that carried with it a sense of real presence, was his ability to talk, his words - the gift of expression, the bewildering, the illuminating, the most exalted and the most contemptible, the pulsating stream of light, or deceitful flow from the heart of an impenetrable darkness." Pg. 79

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A: "I couldn't have felt more of lonely desolation somehow, I had been robbed of belief or had mossed my destiny in life. . ." Pg. 79

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10/30/07

A: Shift from Marlow to the Narrator in the story.

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A: "My ideal boys, what can you expect from a man who out of sheer herrousness had just flung overboard a pair of new shoes! Now I think of it, it is amazing I did not shed in tears." Pg. 80

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A: "They - the women I mean - are out of it - should be out of it. We must help them to stay in that beautiful world of their own, let our gets worse." Pg. 81

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A: "The wilderness had patted him on the head and behold, it was like a ball - an ivory ball; it had caressed him, and - lol- he had withered; it had taken him, loved him, embraced him, got into his veins, consumed his flesh, and sealed his soul to its won by the inconceivable ceremonies of some devilish initiation." Pg. 81

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A: "He had been a very second-rate helmsman while alive but now dead he might become a first-class temptation, and possibly cause some startling trouble." Pg. 86

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A: "One good screech will do more for you that all your rifles, they are simple people." Pg. 89

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A: "For months - for years - his life hadn't been worth a day's purchase; and there he was gallantly, thoughtlessly alive, to all appearance indestructible solely by the virtue of his many years and of his unreflecting audacity. I was seduced into something like admiration - like envy. Glamour urged him on, glamour kept him unscathed. He surely wanted nothing from the wilderness but space to breathe in and to push on through." Pg. 92

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A: "His need was to exist, and to move onwards at the greatest possible risk, and with a maximum of privation. If the absolutely pure, inculcating, unpractical spirit of adventure had ever ruled a human being, it ruled this bespathced youth." Pg. 92

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A: "I looked around and I don't know why, but I assure you that never, never before, did this land, this river, this jungle, the very arc of this blazing sky, appear to me so hopeless and so dark, so impenetrable to human thought, so pitiless to human weakness. 'And, ever since, you have been with him of course?" I said." Pg. 93

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10/31/07

A: "'What can you expect?' he burst out; 'he came to them with thunder and lightning, you know - and they had never seen anything like it - and very terrible. He could be very terrible. You can't judge Mr. Kurtz as you would an ordinary man. No, no, no! Now to just give you an idea - I don't mind telling you, he wanted to shoot me too, one day - but I don't judge him.'"
Pg. 94-95

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A: "Well he wanted it, and wouldn't hear reason. He declared he would shoot me unless I gave him the ivory and then cleared cut the country, because he could do so, and had a fancy for it, and there was nothing on earth to prevent him killing whom jolly well pleased." Pg. 95

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A: "'This man suffered too much. He hated all this, and somehow he couldn't get away." Pg. 95

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A: "Evidently the appetite for more ivory had got the better of what - shall I say? - less material aspirations. However he had got much worse suddenly." Pg. 96

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A: "I returned deliberately to the first I had seen - and there it was, black, dried, sunken, with closed eyelids - ahead that seemed to sleep at the top of that pole, and, with the shrunken dry lips showing a narrow white line of teeth, was smiling too, smiling continuously at some jocose dream of that eternal slumber." Pg. 97

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A: "I want you clearly to understand that there was nothing exactly profitable in these heads being there. They only showed that Mr. Kurtz lacked restraint in the gratification of his various lusts, that there was something wanting in him - some small matter which, when the pressing need arose, could not be found under his magnificent eloquence." Pg. 97

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A: "Rebels! What would be the next definition I was to hear? There had been enemies, criminals, workers - and these were rebels. Those rebellious heads looked very subdued to me on their sticks." Pg. 99

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11/01/07

A: "She was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent; there was something ominous and stately in her deliberate progress. Amd in the hush that had fallen suddenly upon the whole sorrowful land, the immense wilderness, the colossal body of the fecund and mysterioud life seemed to look at her, pensive, and shough it had veen looking at the image of its own tenebrous and passionate soul." Pg. 103

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A: "'Nevertheless I think Mr. Kurtz is a remarkable man,' I said with emphasis. He started, dropped onl me a cold heavy glance, said very quietly, 'he was,' and turned his back on me."
Pg. 105

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A: "'But quiet - eh? he urged anxiously. 'It would be axful for his reputation if anybody here - ' I promised a complete iscretion with great gravity." Pg. 107

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11/02/07

A: "I tried to break the spell - the heavy, mute spell of the wilderness - that seemed to drew him to its pitiless breast by the awakening of forgotten and brutal instincts, by the memory of gratified and monstrous passions." Pg. 112

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A: "I had, even like the niggers, to invoke him - himself - his own exalted and incredible degradation. There was nothing either above or below him, and I knew it." Pg. 112

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A: "He stuggled woth himlelf, too. I saw it - I heard it. I saw the inconceivable mystery of a sould that knew no restraint, no faith, and no fear, yet struggling blindly with itself." Pg. 113
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A: "The brown current ran swiftly out of the heart of darkness, bearing us down towards the sea with twice the speed of oup upward progress; and Kurtz's life was running swirtly, too, ebbing, ebbing out of his heart into the sea of inexorable time." Pg. 115




A: "'One evening comming in with a candle I was startled to hear him say a little tremendously, 'I am lying here in the dark waiting for death.'" Pg. 117

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11/03/07

A: "There was a lamp in there - light, don't you know - and outside it was so beastly, beastly dark. I went no more near the remarkable man who had pronounced a judgment upon the adventures of his soul on this earth. The voice was gore. What else had been there?" Pg. 118

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A: "It takes place in an impalpable greyness, with nothing underfoot, without clamour, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of death, in a sickly atmosphere of tepid scepticism, without much belief in your own right, and still less in htat of your adversary." Pg. 119

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A: "I had no particular desire to enlighten them, but I had some difficulty in restraining myself form laughing in their faces so full of stupid importance. I daresay I was not very well at that time." Pg. 121

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11/04/07

A: "But with every word spocken the room was growing darker, and only her forehead, smooth adn withe remained illumined by the unextinguishable light of belief and love." Pg. 127

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A: "He had given me some reason to infer that it was his impatience of comparative poverty that drove him out there." Pg. 128
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A: Swith from Marlow to Narrator of story Pg. 131

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