HOD post 3

In the last part of Heart of Darkness I picked up on a theme that I thought was interesting and could be applied to everyday life as well as other works of literature. I chose to relate personally to the text.

In the last part of Heart of Darkness I found that there was a theme of “seeing or not seeing the darkness”. Is it better to see the darkness and be scared with the horrors of the world or to ignore the darkness and live in a naïve wonderland? I noticed this in the book in two specific scenarios. The first scenario on page 116 when Marlow is talking to the manager he says to himself, “It seemed to me I had never breathed an atmosphere so vile, and I turned mentally to Kurtz, for relief --- positively for relief.” He them says “Never the less I think Kurtz is a remarkable man.” This quote shows how Marlow relates to seeing the darkness and the horrors of the world. Seeing the horrors scars Marlow, but ironically he turns to the books antagonist for relief. Marlow chose to see the evils of the world and turned to an evil man for mentoring. I believe that when you chose to see the terrible things that encompass our protected existence your life takes upon another path. Once the horrors are seen they cannot go unseen. Once you know what lies beyond the heart of darkness it can never be unknown. This happens to me when I go back to the U.S for vacations. I find it very difficult to relate to a lot of my friends from elementary school because of how different my experiences have been. When I see my friends through away half a hamburger and order an xxx large coke and only drink half, I can’t help but think of the millions of Colombians living under the poverty line. I’ve seen poverty, I’ve been amongst it, and now I will always feel the guilt every time I throw away food. Seeing how people suffer has changed my outlook on life. Poverty however, isn’t even a tenth of what I can imagine Marlow saw in the Congo. If seeing poverty could change my life so much imagine how much it could change Marlow’s to the point where he looked up to Kurtz, a man whose values he clearly looked down upon at the beginning of the novel. So my train of thought as I read this part of the book was basically asking myself if the darkness was really something I wanted to see, or if I just wanted to hold it in the mystery of the lands unmarked on the map.

Further along the reading I encountered yet another passage that related to this thread. On page 141 Marlow talks to Kurtz’s widow and in doing so lies to her about what his last words were. He couldn’t bear showing her the darkness of what her late husband’s last words really were because he saw certain innocence upon her countenance, “But with every word spoken the room was growing darker, and only her forehead, smooth and white, remained illuminated by the unextinguishable light of belief and love.” Marlow couldn’t bear to show her the darkness, he preferred she lived believing her husbands last thoughts and words were regarding her. He didn’t want to mess up the image she has of him and leave her tossing and turning over why her husbands last words were of the horrors of the Congo. Perhaps if she had known she herself would want to see what was so evil about the place and with that she would be condemned to the same life Marlow was now doomed to. In this case I believe Marlow made the right choice by hiding Kurtz’s real last words from his widow. He did her a favor so that she could live her life peacefully without resentment. I found this situation in my own life when my mom told my brother and I that my pet hamster died of naturally causes instead of the real reason, which involved my mom not wanting to pay a 200-dollar hamster surgery. At that time it was a positive white lie. My brother and I were little and knowing that my mom could have saved Hokey Pokey would have depicted her as an evil hamster-killing villain. Like my mom, Marlow chose not to depict Kurtz as a villain, but instead someone who should be admired. Although my example is rather petty I can think of countless other examples where leaving a person in a naïve bubble of love and happiness seems to be a much better alternative than giving the person a life of resentment.

Marlow chose to see the darkness and chose for Kurtz’s widow not too. Overall I believe one should have the choice of either being naïve about the atrocities that go on in the world or seeing them with their eyes open wide. The choice is something that will carve the path for the rest of the person’s life and thus the choice should be theirs. 

HOD post 2

In the second part of Heart of Darkness I have also found some sections that I could relate to personally.

            Marlow seems to be following the path that is foreshadowed upon him. It is noticeable that Marlow begins feeling connected to the natives on board with him but restrains himself as he is now becoming more and more of “Kurtz” so to speak. He also blames the Helmsman’s death on the Helmsman saying that it was his own fault for shooting at the natives in the first place. He throws out the dead body as if it were a body of an animal. Marlow is beginning to show mild symptoms of becoming the man he condemned at the beginning of the novel. Marlow wondered, “what would become of men like that” and now he is getting to taste it first hand. Another thing that was interesting in this second part of the novel was the fact that all it took to scare off the natives was a little taste of technology, the steamboats whistle.

            As Marlow continues on his journey up the river he loses touch with his beliefs that he had at the beginning. He begins falling into Kurtz’s ideology with each bit exposure to his idolization, “You don’t talk to that man, you listen to him.” (Page 98) Along the way people put Kurtz up to be an icon of wisdom. Each person he talks to idolizes him more and more until Marlow grows a certain fascination for him. When Marlow comes to the realization that Kurtz might not be alive he can’t bear with his disappointment. He wants to meet his idol, the famous Kurtz. Marlows journey was much like mine, climbing through the social ladders of the elite of Bogota. The higher I went in grade level, the more I became like everyone else. I had lost touch with my adventurous soul that I started out with and I had lost touch with my strong beliefs that were once unbreakable. I no longer paid attention to the underdogs; I paid attention to the backpacks everyone slung on their shoulders. I idolized celebrities and super models and their ability to purchase their way into fitting in just right with today’s society. I envied their fashionista life styles and their wise fashion advice. Marlow and 10^th grad me had something in common. We were becoming what we had always vowed not to.

            Another thing I found interesting and rather humorous to connect to personally was the steamboat whistle. All it took for the natives to stop attacking the boat was the sound of the whistle. The natives had never heard the whistle before and thus were startled by the loud noise. It reminds me of when I was six years old and living in La Paz, Bolivia. My mom has always been a passive person wanting to see the good in everyone. She wasn’t one for yelling and being snooty so when my maids were caught doing things they weren’t supposed to, she called my over to her computer. She said “Sophia, lets play a trick on Julia and Brigida” I was all into playing tricks on my maids, so I agreed. We had just gotten a desk top computer and my mom had just discovered the “app” where you could type something and the computer would say it allowed. So we typed in “Brigida I can see you, be on your best behavior” and hid under the desk with the mouse until Brigida walked by. We hit play and the message began playing. We watched, hiding our giggles as brigida’s laundry basket went half way across the room as she ran in the opposite direction.  She never did anything she wasn’t supposed to. She was convinced the computer could see her and would tell on her. The little bit of technology that Brigida wasn’t exposed to, was all it took for her to stop misbehaving on the job. Like Marlow and the natives, all it took was a little bit of unexposed technology to get what my mom wanted. 

HOD Post 1

As I began reading Heart of Darkness I began feeling a connection with the main character, Marlow. I saw myself as a young girl reflected upon him, and his foreshadowing’s reflected upon my later life.

            Marlow is a character that seems to be surrounded by greedy, ivory-seeking crewmates. Their ideals are very different from Marlow’s, as Conrad makes apparent in the first part of the novel, “It is funny what some people will do for a few francs a-month. I wonder what becomes of that kind when it goes up country?” (Page 23). The quote is a foreshadowing; Marlow may discover what becomes of himself as he goes up country. The doctor also foreshadows what psychological changes might come to Marlow on his expedition. He says, as he measure his scull, that he hardly sees the explorers again but that the real changes occur inside the scull. Marlow starts off as a pure young boy merely wanting to explore his childhood fantasies. He doesn’t do the job for the money; he does it for the pure curiosity of the unknown, or the blank spots on the map that he had dreamed about exploring when he was a kid. Marlow acknowledges however, that these spots are no longer blank, they have already been discovered, colonized, and given names, “True by this time it was not a blank space anymore. It had got filled since my boyhood with rivers and lakes and names. It had ceased to be a blank space of delightful mystery--- a white patch for a boy to dream gloriously over. It had become a place of darkness.” (Page 10). Marlow knows the horrors that go on in these places he once dreamed of exploring, but his fascination for these spots is too big for him to be scared off by it. Naïve and ignorant people who believe that the company is in Africa for the benefit of the natives frustrate him. He knows that the company is in it for the Ivory and profit. His own aunt who glorifies the company and what they do for the savages irritates him, “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.” (Page 19).

            As I read this in part one I could see myself somewhat reflected upon Marlow. As a child of an expat family, a nomad so to speak, I have always had an adventurous soul. After the second year of being in a new country I would ask my father, is it was time to move yet?. I would get impatient and bored of my routine. I wanted the notice to come saying that in 2 months we would pack up and move to a country I hadn’t heard about and had to look up on a map. Like Marlow, as a kid, I wanted to explore every unknown country I could. I was 8 and living in Bolivia when my father came home with the news that we would be moving back to the states at the end of the year. I was horrified. I wanted to move to Brazil or Chile, some place where I could learn about a culture. I despised my fellow Virginians who compared Chile to a food and Peru to the land of the llamas. Ignorant people irritated me, ad did the irritate Marlow. After 4 years in Virginia we finally moved out again to Bogota, Colombia. My public school got changed for a private one, my chores disappeared with household help, and my average Virginia house got changed for a penthouse apartment. I couldn’t complain. As I started going to my new private school with the richest and most elite children of the Jackie Kennedys of the country I began warping into my new fantasy life. I stopped sticking up for the indigenous and underprivileged like I had in Bolivia and in the US. I began dressing like they did, talking like they did, and losing my ideals that I had come there with. As I completed each grade and went higher up into my middle school and eventually high school career I began becoming what I had vowed not to. Like Marlow is foreshadowed to do, I began changing what I believed in and not speaking up about it. I knew that these kids were here to become richer, not to save their fellow citizens from starvation, but yet I stayed quiet. As I went up country, or up a grade level, I started seeing myself, not as the young little explorer I was in Bolivia with aspirations to become a biologist and explore the Beni, but as a follower of the latest fashion trends and an avid face-booker. When 10^th grade hit I no longer wanted to move countries and explore knew ones. I wanted to stay in the comforts of my luxurious life. By the end of 10^th grade when the notice came, condemning us to four years in Paraguay, I was horrified. I felt like I was moving into a darkness of the unknown. This time, unlike Marlow, I acknowledged the darkness and feared it. I feared my new life and the reality of what would be Paraguayan existence. It was a much more underdeveloped country whose main tourist trap included the Iguassu Falls that lied beyond its borders. I was a changed being after one five year exploration.