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# 2021-03-04 - Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Heart of Darkness was one of many books on my high school English
class reading list for college-bound students. This book has
anti-colonial ideology in the form of brutal honesty, similar to the
writing of Samuel Clemens. Yet the protagonist expresses profoundly
racist and sexist sentiments. I aim to avoid those in my notes.
One topic was restraint, which i perceive as a kind of strength. It
was shown by the cannibalistic pilgrims on Marlow's steamboat, and it
was absent in the colonial whites throughout the book.
Another topic was how out-of-touch the people in London were with the
basic facts of reality, placing greater emphasis on material wealth
than even the most central human relationships. For example, Mr.
Kurtz was betrothed to an English woman, but her family disapproved
because she was wealthy and he was not. Therefore he ruthlessly
pursued the extraction of wealth from foreign lands. In several
parts of the book he makes possessive claims "'My intended, my ivory,
my station, my river, my--' everything belonged to him... The thing
was to know what HE belonged to..."
"The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away
from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses
than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.
What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a
sentimental pretence but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the
idea--something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a
sacrifice to..."
"You can't understand. How could you?--with solid pavement under
your feet, surrounded by kind neighbours ready to cheer you or to
fall on you, stepping delicately between the butcher and the
policeman, in the holy terror of scandal and gallows and lunatic
asylums--how can you imagine what particular region of the first ages
a man's untrammelled feet may take him into by the way of
solitude--utter solitude without a policeman--by the way of
silence--utter silence, where no warning voice of a kind neighbour
can be heard whispering of public opinion? These little things make
all the great difference. When they are gone you must fall back upon
your own innate strength, upon your own capacity for faithfulness."
"I found myself back in the sepulchral city [London] 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. They were intruders whose
knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretence, because I felt so
sure they could not possibly know the things I knew. Their bearing,
which was simply the bearing of commonplace individuals going about
their business in the assurance of perfect safety, was offensive to
me like the outrageous flauntings of folly in the face of a danger it
is unable to comprehend. I had no particular desire to enlighten
them, but I had some difficulty in restraining myself from laughing
in their faces so full of stupid importance."
author: Conrad, Joseph, 1857-1924
detail: gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/Heart_of_Darkness
LOC: PR6005.O4 H478
source: gopher://gopher.pglaf.org/1/2/1/219/
tags: ebook,fiction,race
title: The Heart of Darkness
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fiction
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