Literature Analysis #5

Literature Analysis #5:

Book: Heart of Darkness

Author: Joseph Conrad

Summary: 

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is based on the journey of a sailor named Marlow, who is traveling up the Congo River. Marlow is trying to meet up with a man named Kurtz, which is why he is on this journey. He joins the Company and becomes a riverboat captain. While being a part of the Company, Marlow sees absolute terrible events such as the kidnapping of natives to use them as workers and various other forms of cruelty. He visits Central Station in which he finds out that his ship was sunk, but this makes him more obsessive of meeting Kurtz. Kurtz is thought to be ill, so Marlow works as hard as he possibly can to fix the ship quickly. Once they finally finish the ship, the crew continues his journey. Finally, they run into a hut with piles of firewood, but the ship is soon attacked by natives after the fog cleared. Marlow is luckily able to scare the native by blowing the ship’s whistle. Not long after, Marlow and his crew meets a Russian trader, who is mentally crazy, but he says that Kurtz has enlarged his mind and can’t be surrounded by normal moral judgements. Kurtz is now thought of a God to the natives. Soon, Kurtz is brought out by the manager onto the steamer and later disappears into the night. Marlow follows him and convinces him to come back on the ship. On their way back, Kurtz tells Marlow about various documents that say the “savages” must be exterminated. The steamer has issues causing it to stop. Sadly, Kurtz dies and Marlow is able to survive even with his terrible illness. Kurtz’s last words were “The horror! The horror!”, but Marlow tells Kurtz’s intended fiancee that his last word was her name.

A theme within the book is the exploration of ambiguity, moral confusion, and what is considered to be evil. Marlow is stuck at an impasse between two choices that both have negative aspects to them, so he must decide what is right and if it’s worth the sacrifice.

 The tone changes throughout the book due to the different events happening, so it’s difficult to pin point an exact tone. 

“We live as we dream--alone....” 

“His face was like the autumn sky, overcast one moment and bright the next.” 

These are examples of  similes since they compare two concepts with either the word like or as.

“The horror! The horror!”

“I have been very happy—very fortunate—very proud,' she went on. 'Too fortunate. Too happy for a little while. And now I am unhappy for—for life.” 

This author uses these repetitions to connect with his audience and to make a lasting impression on those reading the book.

“It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core.”

This is an example of personification because he is compared to as a tree, which connects to the environment.

“The vision seemed to enter the house with me—the stretcher, the phantom-bearers, the wild crowd of obedient worshippers, the gloom of the forests, the glitter of the reach between the murky bends, the beat of the drum, regular and muffled like the beating of a heart—the heart of a conquering darkness.” 

This is an example of imagery and provided vivid images for the audience to create within their minds. In addition, this quote directly relates to the title of the book.

“For a time I would feel I belonged still to a world of straightforward facts; but the feeling would not last long. Something would turn up to scare it away.” 

This is an example of foreshadowing and portrays a turn in events, so the audience are able to predict what could happen next. 

“Perhaps on some quiet night the tremor of far-off drums, sinking, swelling, a tremor vast, faint; a sound weird, appealing, suggestive and wild - and perhaps with as profound a meaning as the sound of bells in a Christian country.” 

This quote brings strong images, memories, and feelings, which elicits pathos and strengthens the narrator’s tone at that particular time, so this is an example evocative. “ --so full of stupid importance.” 

This is an example of oxymoron and provides a deeper level of understanding.

“Often far away there I thought of these two, guarding the door of Darkness, knitting black wool as for a warm pall, one introducing, introducing continuously to the unknown, the other scrutinizing the cheery and foolish faces with unconcerned old eyes. Ave! Old knitter of black wool. Morituri te salutant. Not many of those she looked at ever saw her again--not half, by a long way.” 

This is an example of allusion due to the fact that it is alluding to the door of Darkness, but it also places images within the mind of the reader, which will cause personal connections to be made.

“I found myself back in the sepulchral city resenting the sight of people hurrying through the streets to filch a little money from each other, to devour their infamous cookery, to gulp their unwholesome beer, to dream their insignificant and silly dreams. They trespassed upon my thoughts.”

This an example of a flashback and gives the audience information about past events within a character’s life, which enriches their characterization.

“The fascination of the abomination.” 

A paradox is a situation, person, or thing that combines contradictory features or qualities. This quote struggles with these two contradictory ideals, which alludes to the idea of how sometimes we must accept that somethings just aren’t worth hoping for.

Characterization:

Direct characterization is when the author makes statements about a character's personality directly to the reader. 

Indirect characterization is when the author reveals the character's personality through that character's thoughts, words, or interactions with others.

Direct:

“I think the knowledge came to him at last — only at the very last. But the wilderness had found him out early, and had taken on him a terrible vengeance for the fantastic invasion. I think it had whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till he took counsel with this great solitude — and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating. Anything approaching the change that came over his features I have never seen before, and hope never to see again. Oh, I wasn’t touched. I was fascinated. It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that ivory face the expression of somber pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror — of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision, — he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath — ‘The horror! The horror!” 

“And from right to left along the lighted shore moved a wild and gorgeous apparition of a woman. She walked with measured steps, draped in striped and fringed cloths, treading the earth proudly, with a slight jingle and flash of barbarous ornaments. She carried her head high; her hair was done in the shape of a helmet; she had brass leggings to the knee, brass wire gauntlets to the elbow, a crimson spot on her tawny cheek, innumerable necklaces of glass beads on her neck; bizarre things, charms, gifts of witchmen, that hung about her, glittered and trembled at every step. She must have had the value of several elephant tusks upon her. She was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent; there was something ominous and stately in her deliberate progress. And in the hush that had fallen suddenly upon the whole sorrowful land, the immense wilderness, the colossal body of the fecund and mysterious life seemed to look at her, pensive, as though it had been looking at the image of its own tenebrous and passionate soul. Her face had a tragic and fierce aspect of wild sorrow and of dumb pain mingled with the fear of some struggling, halt-shaped resolve. She stood looking at us without a stir, and like the wilderness itself, with an air of brooding over an inscoutable purpose. A whole minute passed, and then she made a step forward. There was a low jingle, a glint of yellow metal, a sway of fringed draperies, and she stopped as if her heart had failed her. She looked at us all as if her life had depended upon the unswerving steadiness of her glance” 

Indirect:

“I saw him open his mouth wide. . . as though he had wanted to swallow all the air, all the earth, all the men before him.” 

“He was there below me, and, upon my word, to look at him was as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a featherhat, walking on his hind legs.” 

“All that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men.” The author’s diction does change because he reacts to the different aspects of each character.

Marlow is a dynamic, round character because he changes as the story goes along. He is stuck between two evils and it drives him to make choice he wouldn’t have before the journey.

“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 appals 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. Temperament, I suppose.” 

Honestly, I felt like I had met each of characters. I understood their emotions and reasoning, which made this book quite enjoyable to read!