Heart of Darkness: Psychological Journey into Africa's Darkness and the Human Heart, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica Heart of Darkness: Psychological Journey into Africa's Darkness and the Human Heart e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924) Life Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski was born in 1857 in the Russian dominated Ukraine. He had polish parents who died when he was young. He moved to France (Marseille) in 1874 and went to sea, as a sailor. In the first part of his life he didn’t write, he spent four years of his life in the French Merchant Navy and 16 years in the British merchant navy. He sailed all over the world and especially in the far east, which is where most of his exotic settings come from. In 1886 he took British nationality, in 1894 he retired from the sea and started writing. Works and writing He decided to write in English, even though it wasn’t his mother tongue. With his first novel “Almayer’s folly” (1895) he adopted the name Joseph Conrad, to make it sound English; this novel did not get famous and neither did the following “Lord Jim” (1900), “Youth” (1902), “Nostromo” (1904), “The secret agent” (1907), “The shadow line” (1917). Lord Jim, Nostromo, and the Secret agent are adventure books set in exotic countries, in which the protagonist has to face some ordeals and struggle against opponent forces. He had no big success with these novels but he was admired by other writers. “The shadow line” is a story in which a sailor has to sail the next day, and we read his thoughts about the upcoming travel. It is a deeply psychological novel. “Chance” is his first great success, after this one people started reading his other works as well. Heart of darkness “Heart of darkness” (1902), is a short novel based on an autobiographical experience. In 1890 Conrad went to Africa to command a trading vessel on the Congo river, for a Belgium company. At the time this state was known as the Congo free state, but it wasn’t really free because it was personal property of the Belgium king Leopold II (colonialism at its finest). In this property there was brutal exploitation of the natives (basically slavery). Conrad’s experience in Congo was traumatising: at first he couldn’t find the boat he had to command, then he fell ill with malaria and had a nervous breakdown because of the brutal scenes he saw on the daily, and because of the isolation he felt. The book heart of darkness is written in first person narrator, who is listening to a middle aged English sailor named Marlow (second narrator), who also tells his story in first person. He tells what happened while he was on the Congo river and was collecting ivory to send back to Belgium (same situa di Conrad). Marlow is witness of the cruel exploitation of the natives. He was sent by Belgium to go and fetch the best agent of the company: Kurtz. Kurtz is said to be ill but he somehow sends back as much ivory as all the other agents put together. Marlow starts from the central station of the company, then he goes to the inner station where Kurtz lives, alone, in a desolate place. Marlow goes up the river to reach Kurtz, who lives in the wilderness and immediately understands that the wilderness has completely devastated Kurtz’s soul. He was transformed from a European civilized man (haha he’s so civilized) into a figure of evil that’s worshipped by the natives. He basically became their idol, which is the reason why the natives try to bring him as much ivory as possible and why he sends back so much of it: they are doing it because they want to. Then Marlow relieves Kurtz, but he dies while he was taking him to central station. Marlow returns to Europe and decides to go meet Kurtz’s fiancé and lies to her because telling her that Kurtz’s soul was corrupted and telling her about the man he had become would’ve been devastating. Kurtz’s had a girlfriend in Africa too. The title ‘Heart of darkness’ can have two meanings: the literal one refers to the darkness of Africa, the ‘dark’ continent. It is also a literal reference to the heart of Africa: up the river, the central part of Congo is considered a ‘dark’ place. On a figurative level the title refers to the darkness of the human heart: the person Kurtz became when he was in the wilderness. The book describes both a geographical journey and a psychological and introspective one into consciousness. As Marlow gets closer and closer to Kurtz and to the central part of Africa the book gets more and more introspective. Kurtz is the symbol of the 19th century white colonist whose aim was to humanize native people and felt like a god. The journey up the river represents a voyage back into the savage state of man, to the lack of need to keep under control every impulse. Kurtz was a civilized human being and then became a blood thirsty tyrant. He became much more savage than the natives. The African landscape represents the unknown immense psyche. The themes this book deals with are Colonialism, Psychological theme of discovery of human consciousness and the Denunciation of colonialism. ____chapter one - Heart of darkness____ scheda The natives are building structures near the river, for the ivory. There is a chain connecting all these people, they are not wearing clothes but black rags. These rags were ‘waggling like tails’: these people are portrayed as animals, not as human beings. Iron collars on their necks, the narrator could see every rib (they were probably starving). The atmosphere described refers to warfare, it is not peaceful. A war that is without an enemy, but “they were called criminals”. They are very tired and losing their strength because of this labor. Their condition is the condition of an animal, they are completely indifferent to the white man watching them, because they know they will die. There is a sort of guardian for these people, a black man with a uniform. He pointed the weapon for prudence, he could not tell the difference between white people so maybe he thought it was one of his ‘bosses’. ‘high and just proceedings’: ironic. ‘chain gang’: to indicate the slaves that are tied by a chain together. Line 30-35: metaphor for colonialism, described as a devil, a devil of a pitiless folly. Weak-eyed. There is a huge hole in the ground and Marlow understand that it’s useless, the only aim is to make people work, for no reason. There were drainage pipes in this hole. l.44 reference to Dante. Something beyond reality that sounds impossible on the earth, surreal atmosphere. l.49 first change: the first men Marlow saw were men described as men, here they are no longer animals, not even that. Here they are just shapes. They still have some ‘alive’ characteristics (sitting, leaning etc.) but these verbs can be both used for animals and humans. Even if we have the noise produced by mines they don’t react, they are no longer able to. They are simply waiting for death. When these people were no longer able to work, because they were too weak to work. They were isolated and left to die. This is the place where they waited for death. 55. says again that they were not enemies, and not criminals. ‘black shadows’: unsubstantial. 56. ‘greenish gloom’: The last language he learned was English, which can be deduced because the way he uses it is very built up, not natural. 57. ‘uncongenial surroundings’: ironic. They ate food they couldn’t digest, became inefficient and then they were allowed to ‘crawl’ (animals) away and ‘rest’ (before death). 61. ‘black bones’, he doesn’t call them arms or legs, they are just bones. 71. ‘bundles’ (sagome): of acute angles. All you can see are angles because they are just bones. 73. ‘phantom’