"It had borne all the ships whose names are like jewels flashing in the night of time, form the Golden Hind returning with her round flanks full of treasure, to be visited by the Queen's Highness and thus pass out of the gigantic tale, to the Erebus and Terror, bound on other conquests- and that never returned. It had known the ships and the men"(5)
~This short excerpt from the book says to me that there is a possibility that these might have the same fortune. These people on this ship. Along with the forgotten names of the ships from the past. They can be invaded by pirates or sink.
"'Mind,' he began again, lifting one arm from the elbow, the palm of the hand outwards, so that, with his legs folded before him, he had the pose of a Buddha preaching in European clothes and without a lotus flower-"(9)
~Will this Charlie be what he presently looks like? A wise all-knowing buddha. Probably not he is just another sailor who has seen a lot. He'll spread all these tall tales to people and fill them with fear. But who knows the novel is just beginning.
Pages 11-18
"The supernatural being had not been touched after he fell. And the village was deserted, the huts gaped black, rotting, all askew withing the fallen enclosures"(13)
~Such a dark and evil feeling I get from this. When this 'agent' killed this man. So horrible an act to do over some hens. It is probably something that will occur in the novel again. The white and civilized man will beat, degrade the native because of this superior feeling that they have. This dark and evil sentiment will eventually affect the rest of the people somehow, by leaving their huts or maybe dying away.
"She seemed to know all about them and about me, too. An eerie feeling came over me. She seemed uncanny and fateful"(16)
~ Charlie is a man quick to judge. This woman whom I am assuming is his aunt looks at him. Doing more that looking at him she quickly runs through her mind all the information she know about him. Charlie knowing this gets this eerie feeling. This uncomfortable and out of place feeling he gets so quickly from this split second.
Pages 19-26
" The idleness of a passenger, my isolation amongst all these men with whom I had no point of contact, the oily and languid sea, the uniform sobreness of the coast, seemed to keep me away from the truth of things, within the toil of a mournful and senseless delusion"(20)
~I believe Charlie might be slightly insane. All this he reflects and shares well makes him look less normal than your average person. Perhaps he will act upon these sentiments. If he has had these feelings of isolation before, then he will have them again. Eventually turning into a Bertha:)
"There wasn't even a shed there, and she was shelling the bushing"(21)
~Mrs. Bosch when you read this I hope you can explain to me what it means. A woman, native of course, is alone defending from outsiders. From unwanted vistors and she is I'm assuming living in the bush.
"I had stepped into the gloomy circle of some Inferno. The rapids were near, and an uninterrupted, uniform, headlong, rushing noise filled the mournful stillness of the grove, where not a breath stirred, not a leaf moved, with a mysterious sound as though the tearing pace of the launched earth had suddenly become audible"(26)
~ This will probably be how the rest of the novel will be. Opression of the inferior race. They will be starved and depraved of life. How horrible that is and that is exactly what a inferno is. A horrible place where people are treated and made less than animals. The image you get this from this is a still desert only with more vegetation.
Pages 27-34
"One,with his chin propped on his knees, stared at nothing, in an intolerable and apalling manner:..."(27)
~ANGER!! RAGE!!! Why and how could you let this happen? These people are the slaves of the white people working on this island. All these natives have found this area that will be there graves. Unfortunately it is not a proper burial but it is basically a burial above the ground. So sad and what depressing emotions.
"On my asking who Mr.Kurtz was, he said he was a first-class agent; and seeing my dissapointment at this information , he added slowly, laying down his pen, 'He is a very remarkable person'"(29)
~Mr.Kurtz is going to be a remarkable person. I imagine a put together man, neat and talented. If he is talked about like this by this accountant then maybe there is this respect for Mr.Kurtz that he has earned. Maybe he'll turn out to be something different though. The runner of this hell hole.
Pages 35-42
""I asked myself sometimes what it all meant. They wandered here and there with their absurd long staves in their hands, like a lot of faithless pilgrims bewitched inside a rotten fence. The word 'ivory' rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed. You would think they were praying to it"(37)
~This brief part of Heart of Darkness makes me consider tying it into the statement said by Chinua Achebe. Whether this quote supports or refutes the statement is the question. The quote supports the statement made by Achebe. Conrad gives the reader a image of people who lack intelligence and self-independence. They simply dedicate and worship what there duties are, what the white man makes them do. Not what they want to do or believe in, but what is now the purpose for the white man keeping them alive.
"I let him run on, this papier-mache mephistopheles, and it seemed to me that if I tried I could poke my forefinger through him, and would find nothing inside but a little loose dirt, maybe"(42)
~ Conrad writes about this odd character and his deceptive almost mischievious attitude. The reality of the matter is yes this man is made out of flesh and bones but his inner being is something else. His fake and unsincere personality makes him no more than a hollow man. A person who has no more in him than clods of dirt, stupidity and someone who seeks friendship for convenience.
Pages 43- 50
"I don't like work- no man does- but Ilike what is in the work- the chance to find yourself. Your own reality- for yourself, not for others- what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really means"(47)
~What a beautiful view and profound way of seeing what work is. Marlow believes that work is a time to reflect, not frolic or play, but reconsider this person you appear to be. Then take that and compare it to what you really are inside. It is this way since work takes someone to be silent, and in silence the mind wanders.
"It came in sections during the next three weeks, each section headed by a donkey carrying a white man in new clothes and tan shoes, bowing from that elevation right andlet to the impressed pilgrims. A quarrelsome band of footsore sulky niggers trod on the heels of the donkey;.."(49)
~The white man in clean clothes and the darker skinned man below him. This just could also justify what Achebe is saying. That those men, those slaves are nothing but mere beasts. They don't deserve their own donkey and deserve to follow the steps of this animal. Why because to the white man they are nothing but the equals of lowly creatures.
Pages 51-58
'That's what I say; nobody here, you understand,here, can endanger your position. And why? You stand the climate- you outlast them all. The dangers in Europe"(53)
~Conrad here reverses the traditional use of the symbolic colors. The white man here is the evil. If these two men, uncle and nephew characters, have no fear in the jungle then they must feel no danger when near the slaves. So much that they are degraded and mistreated yet they cause no harm. While the fear of the uncle solely lies on returning to Europe. Where in Europe the true savage men lie, full of greed and decievery. Thus this such moment reflects the inverse use of black representing good and white representing evil.
"But I felt it all the same; I felt often its mysterious stillness watching me at my monkey tricks, just a it watches you fellows performing on your respective tight ropes for what is it? half-a-crown a tumble-"(56)
~ If Heart of Darkness is a racist novel why would Marlow say this about the European fellow? So the stance could be taken on either side of the spectrum. For in this part of the novel Marlow speaks of the simplicity of the white mans mind. Working and performing, following the directions they are given by the royal. All done for even the slightest acknowledgement.
Pages 59-66
"-No they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of it- this suspicion of their not being unhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid face; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity- like yours- the thought of your kinship with this wild and passionate uproar"(59)
~I feel as if these people are made to seem animal, beasts more. Also this feeling of pity for them, because they are not like the white man. This reflects on what Achebe is saying in his essay, that Heart of Darkness is a racist novel. The novel is this manner but in a subtle way. Conrad does this through all the detail he uses and emphasizes. Almost as if he never gets to a point in the paragraph but does pass some type of judgement.
"The current was more rapid now, the steamer seemed at her last gasp, the stern-wheel flopped laguidly, and I caught myself listening on tiptoe for the next beat of the boat, for in sober truth I expected the wretched thing to give up every moment. It was like watching the last flickers of a life. But still we crawled. Sometimes I would pick out a tree a little way ahead to measure our progress toward Kurtz by, but I lost it invariably before we got abreast"(67-74)
~This paragraph makes me think of the way some of us our some ignorant people view the African culture. It moves so slow and progresses inch by inch while the world expects it just to die. Almost as if there is no hope for it just because of all the negativity that can be connected with this continent. That you expect it to just fall and give up then you forget. You remeber once again once you realize that still it crawls on.
Pages 67-74
"Don't you know the devilry of lingering starvation,, its exasperatin torment, its black thoughts, its sombre and brooding ferocity? Well, I do. It takes a man all his inborn strength to fight hunger properly. It's really easier to face beravement, dishonour, and the perdition of one's soul- than this kind of prolonged hunger"(70)
~What is the message being sent here? That if someone can not stand there hunger they are not a man. If they fall they show a sign of weakness and they are no longer man. So now are they beast or creatures? Does he refer to those who are below or not of his kind, his people? Is Marlow saying that people who result to eating hippomeat are below men? His speech makes it seem like he is.
"At night I slept, or tried to, on the couch. An athletc black belonging to soem coast tribe and educated by my poor predecessor, ws the helmsman. He sported a pair of brass earrings, wore a blue cloth wrapper from the waist to the ankles, and thought all the world of himself. He was the most unstable kind of fool I had ever seen"(74)
~What this is is a misinterpration of different cultures. One by Marlow because maybe he doesn't understand that to this man this is a marvelous invention. That to him he believes so much of himself because he is handling a different and great machine. Then of the man who temporarily handles the steamer because he does not understand that maybe he is placing himself too high. That possibly that does not go well with Marlow.
Pages 75-82
"We two whites stood over him, and his lustrous and inquiting glance enveloped us both. I declare it looked as though he would presently put to us some question in an understandable language; but he died without uttering a sound, without moving a limb, withouth twitching a muscle"(78)
~Here the white man standing over the dying speared man are evil. White is evil because they don't even try to stop or prevent him from dying this painful death. They just watch and soon as this is all over,he dies, they just think of how they can get rid of the body.
"There was a pause of profound stillness, then a match flared, and Marlow's lean face appeared, worn hollow, with downward folds and dropped eyelids, with an aspect of concentrated attention;..."(80)
~This unnamed narrator finally speaks. When he speaks it is to describe what Marlow looks like after he talked about the dying man. His concentrated look, maybe thinking about what he had donel. The actions he decided to take when a man was dying right in front of him.
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