dragojustine (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dragojustine) wrote2006-11-22 10:39 pm
dragojustine) wrote2006-11-22 10:39 pm
Entry tags:
Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
There's a lot going on here. It's most definetly a work of.. craft. Of intertwining symbols and motifs, of underlying themes- the light and dark, insides and outsides, surfaces, impenetrability, value and wealth, rivers and land, physical and psychological disease, yadda yadda. No one can accuse it of being shallow, easily interpreted, not created with care. That said, it's awfully unsettling to read from a modern perspective. Women are symbols, not characters, black people are symbols, props, devices for illustration of points, not characters. Africa is not a place, it is... something that happens to you. It mocks the greed and hypocrisy of colonialism as practiced, but at the same time seems to mythologize the great European explorer penetrating the black spaces of the map, not for greed or hypocrisy, but for experience and a glimpse into his own soul.
It is saved, a little, by the digression at the beginning, and the line at the end, that compare the Thames to the Congo- a river that, once, led into darkness as well. The conflict is between savagery and civilization, not black and white people per se, and there is nothing inherent in Africa that makes it the current seat of savagery- Britian was, in a different era of the world. That saves it a bit, but, you know, only a bit. The parallel drawn between the tribal mistress and the English Intended, both reaching their arms out to the memory of Kurtz, also saves it a bit.
And over it all we have Kurtz, a character who is fascinating for being completely symbolic, for being all things to all people, for being nothing but a disembodied set of skills (most of all eloquence), for being nothing but a gaping chasm of the darkness of a man's id after the loss of the civilized super-ego, for being, really, nothing at all. We're left with Marlowe- the only actual character in the entire book- fanatically devoted to him simply because he chose a route other than greed and hypocrisy and the faults of civilization, and revealed a blackness that Marlowe feels in his own soul- and then we're left with Marlowe, ancient-mariner style, roaming the earth desperate to tell his story.
The book is most definitely a work of craft, but it feels unsubstantial, the way books composed entirely of symbols and not characters tend to do. Much to think about, little to truly love.
There's a lot going on here. It's most definetly a work of.. craft. Of intertwining symbols and motifs, of underlying themes- the light and dark, insides and outsides, surfaces, impenetrability, value and wealth, rivers and land, physical and psychological disease, yadda yadda. No one can accuse it of being shallow, easily interpreted, not created with care. That said, it's awfully unsettling to read from a modern perspective. Women are symbols, not characters, black people are symbols, props, devices for illustration of points, not characters. Africa is not a place, it is... something that happens to you. It mocks the greed and hypocrisy of colonialism as practiced, but at the same time seems to mythologize the great European explorer penetrating the black spaces of the map, not for greed or hypocrisy, but for experience and a glimpse into his own soul.
It is saved, a little, by the digression at the beginning, and the line at the end, that compare the Thames to the Congo- a river that, once, led into darkness as well. The conflict is between savagery and civilization, not black and white people per se, and there is nothing inherent in Africa that makes it the current seat of savagery- Britian was, in a different era of the world. That saves it a bit, but, you know, only a bit. The parallel drawn between the tribal mistress and the English Intended, both reaching their arms out to the memory of Kurtz, also saves it a bit.
And over it all we have Kurtz, a character who is fascinating for being completely symbolic, for being all things to all people, for being nothing but a disembodied set of skills (most of all eloquence), for being nothing but a gaping chasm of the darkness of a man's id after the loss of the civilized super-ego, for being, really, nothing at all. We're left with Marlowe- the only actual character in the entire book- fanatically devoted to him simply because he chose a route other than greed and hypocrisy and the faults of civilization, and revealed a blackness that Marlowe feels in his own soul- and then we're left with Marlowe, ancient-mariner style, roaming the earth desperate to tell his story.
The book is most definitely a work of craft, but it feels unsubstantial, the way books composed entirely of symbols and not characters tend to do. Much to think about, little to truly love.