Heart of DarknessHeart of Darkness Passage

Some Notes

• Philanthropic desire…criminals

• Wanton smash up

• Gloomy circle of some Inferno

• Rushing noise…mournful stillness of the grove..the tearing pace of the launched earth

• Black shapes crouched, lay sat…leaning, clinging to the earth, half coming out of the earth, half effaced within the dim light in all the attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair

• Three parts: this the entrance alludes to hell

• Repetition and triadic structure to emphasize the dehumanization of natives

• Ironic diction choices emphasize effects of colonialism and imperialism on group, but sarcasm which is evident in phrasing and punctuation shows narrator sympathizes

DictionPathos

• The work was going on. The work! And this was the place where some of the helpers had withdrawn to die.

• Punctuation:sarcasm• Nominationreduced

to mere shadows (lacking substance)

• They were dying….not enemies…not criminals…nothing earthly now, nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation lying confusedly in the greenish gloom.

Irony (sarcasm)—Disapproval of Effects of Imperialism

• Brought from all the recesses of the coast

• In all the legality of time contracts

• Lost…fed on uncongenial food, they sickened, became inefficient and were allowed to crawl away and rest. (echo: “to die”… “to rest” (irony)

• These moribund shapes

• Free as air—and nearly as thin.

• The black bones reclined..sunken eyes..enormous and vacant…the man…almost a boy

• Pathos as shift to second section individual suffering and helplessness

Pathos: individualized, a boy, free, reduced to bones Helplessness• I found nothing else to do• Fingers closed slowly…• No other movement …no other glance• Two more bundles of acute angles• Stared at nothing in an appalling manner• Al about others were scattered in every pose

of contorted collapse…as in a picture of massacre or pestilence…I stood horror struck

Further helplessness and victimization

• One of these creatures• On all fours• Lapped

• General chaos (wanton smash up…)

• Scattered…Contorted

• Chaos and suffering caused by Imperialism

• Sympathy and Helplessness, horrified and appalled

• Complexity here is in Ironic choices

TRANSITION: juxtaposition but

• I didn’t want any more loitering in the shade

• Made haste• Unexpected elegance

of get-up• Mistook him for a sort

of vision• High starched collar

• White cuffs• A light alpaca jacket.• Snowy trousers• A clean necktie• Varnished boots• Hair parted, brushed,

oiled under a green lined parasol held in a big white hand

Respect for appearances; litotes and irony undermine statements

• He was amazing and had a pen holder behind his ear.

• I shook hands with this miracle

• A breath of fresh air• Wonderfully odd with

its suggestion of sedentary desk life

• Moreover I respected the fellow. Yes. I respected 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 kept up his appearance

Consider these statements on your college letter

• That’s backbone. • His starched collars and got-up shirt fronts were

achievements of character• He had the faintest blush…”I have been teaching one

of the women…it was difficult. She had a distaste for the work. ECHO from first section “The work!”)

• Verily accomplished something….devoted to his books

• …Apple-pie order.” Especially in context of hellish suffering (he’s clueless and morally judged)

Ironic Contrast

• Any respect only for appearances• Labor of another (esp. when seen in context

of the dying laborers just)• Gloomy Inferno Vs breath of fresh air• Marlow as complex narrator beyond style?

– You know with them it is hard to tell• Are we invited into Racist complicity? Perhaps• Does this negate horror? Sympathy?