Heart of Darkness

[Anonymous No.592433]

Can I just say how much I love Heart of Darkness?

I just reread it for the first time since high school for one of my college classes about a month ago. Then I had to write a paper using it and wound up rereading like half the book because I got so engrossed while I was skimming for quotes.

Conrad's style is so expressionist, that's the word for it, I think. I do not think it's a coincidence that I like expressionist painting and this book as much as I do. Conrad cares more about the mood and the feeling of the moment more than the moment itself.

It's beautiful.

Yeah, its racist, but somehow he even makes that kind of beautiful.

I think I'm going to grab some of Conrad's other work over the summer and hope that they are all as great.

[Anonymous No.592455]

Expressionistic?

Reading that book, it was pure exposition; he was too busy cramming some kind of metaphor in every line of every letter or every sentence to do anything.

If you think that book is racist, you're reading it wrong.

[Anonymous No.592466]

>>592455
>If you think that book is racist, you're reading it wrong.

I thought so originally too--but just because he's also sympathetic to black people he still pretty clearly doesn't have much of an opinion on them. But that's really a minor aspect of the book and not even what it's about. I think the only reason I mentioned it is because I'm writing about racism for school.

I can see why you say what you say about the book, but I really think it's quite a great read.

[Anonymous No.592491]

>>592466

I would point you directly to the passage but I can't be bothered. It's clearly there, though, in the first dozen pages, probably.

The part where the then narrator (or maybe it was Marlowe himself speaking, I don't remember) likens the events in Africa to the Romans invading a river in Roman-Age England and he makes the analogy of Europe:Africa, Rome:England and talks a bit about how war is excused simply because the opposing people have "slightly flatter noses" then the invaders.

Combined with his use of titles instead of personal names, he is clearly making a "It could be anywhere, the people are interchangeable."

And also, the passage with them on the river, and he thinks highly of the african cannibals on on the boat eating their rotting meat instead of turning on the white passengers, who he describes as angry and fearful and driven by mob mentality. And wasn't the driver of the boat African? Pretty sure he compliments him on his work ethic, which was a huge part of the book.

tl;dr - pretty sure you're doin' it wrong.

[Anonymous No.592515]

>Pretty sure he compliments him on his work ethic, which was a huge part of the book.

Yeah but he also says he's like a dog that was put into human clothes.

Like I said, I don't really think he's super racist and I think he generally thinks imperialism is bad and that they shouldn't be doing what they're doing, but he really strips the black people in the story of humanity. His most generous description of them is that they are not quite inhuman.

I'm kind of being forced to look for the racist stuff in it for my paper so it's all sticking out at me at this moment in time, but I think it's probably the most minor part of the book, and that every other bit of content in the story is more worthy of discussion.

[Anonymous No.592522]

Conrad is God.

[Anonymous No.592534]

>>592515

His descriptions of them may look condescending, but that doesn't change the fact that

> he is clearly making a "It could be anywhere, the people are interchangeable."

metaphor. That pretty much neglects anything that could possibly be seen as remotely racists. He, in effect, says the same exact thing of his own ancestors. Of the Chinese under Mongol invasion, of Koreans under Chinese Invasion, of Europe under Scandinavian invasion, and so on and so forth.

He might say that they are little more than dogs in clothing, but he doesn't say much better things of any of the lighter skinned characters.