Throughout Heart of Darkness there have been some sections or passages that leave me really confused. Yes, yes, I know that sounds really lame, and "confused" might not be the perfect word to describe how incredibly dumbfounded I am at points, but seriously--some parts of this book leave me with no clue as to what is being described or what is going on.
Take page 109 for example.The big passage actually starts on the bottom of 108, and it doesn't even specifically state who is talking. I just have to assume that the speaker is Marlow, narrating his trip on the river to find Mr. Kurtz. But wait! They haven't told us that yet, so we don't understand what he is doing. He then talks for about 3/4 of 109, about things that I just don't understand. It's this type of odd writing that my brain dies on, because context clues are sort of non-existent. I just don't get it.
Sure, I understand that he is describing a scene from his boat, and he is describing the African men he sees from the boat, and he describes them as human...and then says they aren't, and then goes into this two paragraph chunk of stuff that I don't understand, and then compares the men to a dog. Or maybe I'm missing something?
Nice profile picture. I agree, there are lots of discombobulating scenes in this book, but I understood most of this passage. Marlow is commenting on the base actions and emotions of humans, and how the natives clearly were showing them. He talks about how it stirs something in you to see "your remote kinship" like this, although he claims that he was too busy taking care of the daily running of his ship to respond to them. You must be a man and be true to yourself to recognize it though.
ReplyDeleteThis section was also thoroughly confusing to me. I think the dog part you are referring to is the part where the speaker says the native fireman looks like a dog parading in a feather hat and suit...as if this is a normal occurrence in Africa? I agree that the narrator either seems to lose his train of thought and go off on a rant or simply can't condense parts of his story that tend to "blither". This scene also confused me in terms of layout, we know that the speaker is on the boat, but what is he looking at? Natives in the river or natives in the forest?He describes the mist as sounding like savages screaming, but then he says there are men who are actually screaming, so does this then cancel out the comment about the mist? The jumping back and fourth from "the men" to "the savages" leads to confusion, do you think that this is representative of some sort of internal conflict on behalf of the narrator or laziness on behalf of the author?
ReplyDeleteTo answer part of your question, Marlow is narrator and speaker in this passage. A few other people chose this passage or parts of it as well. This is mostly Marlow's description of the natives. He is beginning to turn away from the imperialistic view and while he may not see the Congolese as fully human, still mostly referring to them as body parts and shapes and movements, he is starting to realize that their humanity mirrors his own. His conflicting feelings are also reflected in the conflicting description of the passage.
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