HOD essay idea

My first idea is your generic compare and contrast essay. Like compare and comtrast Freud and Conrad's representation of the darkness in all of us, or something like that. My basic thesis would be that they both saw the darkness in all of us, something about how they differ in their explanation if it (but not different enough to need a contrast paragraph), and how they differ on what men should do about it/accept it or not. I would then separate my paragraphs into how the darkness in us is the unconscious, the nature of that darkness, and what humanity should do about it. I've also structured the paragraphs, but that's too much to put in this blog post. Oh yeah, and I would use murfin to glue to two writers together

If I feel that i should do a more specific essay, I will do slavery. The question would be something like how do Freud and Conrad differ in their representations (or whatever) of slavery in their books. I would basically say that Conrad says its because we are just bad at heart, and Freud says that it is because our suppressed ids come out. Maybe I'd use murfin to connect the two. This one has some very vivid and good quotes I could use.

Those are my two best at the moment. Maybe an essay about vivid imagery or symbols would work too.

Murfin

so, i read the murfin thing. it wasn't great because i didn't agree with everything that he said. There were some things that definitely resonated with me though. The bit about Jung that said that stories like HOD are comments on the collective unconscious of society sounded right. By the way, my grandma is a Jungian analyst. The bit about the characters of books being representations/sides/repressions of the author's personality sounded right to me too. Unfortunately for Murfin, Freud is no longer widely used in the psychology community because of his crazy theories about kids and sex, and that really detracts from this paper because Freud is the paper's focus. I also think that he is right to point out that Freud and Conrad wrote about the "darkness" that is in all of us. Freud's was the unconscious/id and Conrad's was innate desires and evils. Murfin talked a lot about dreams and about books being like the dream's of authors. I'm not sure why he felt the need to make that connection, but he did and it's not great. Yes, it makes it easier to talk about psychology when you can talk about a dream, but it's not. Making up a story, especially one with so many metaphors and symbols as HOD, requires a great deal of conscious thought. so saying that the story is purely the unconscious representation of whatever is in the author is just not true. And that's what i have to say about that.

The end of HOD

I finished the book in class. So good! I didn't get all of the intricacies and stuff the first time I read it (well, heard it). The end was awesome! I think that every other word was an adjective or adverb. I liked that he lieder a pure, moral woman who has had all of the light sapped out of her soul at the end of his story... It really fits the story (for obvious reasons). The poetic end of the novel closes the depressing book with a beautiful paragraph and makes the points of the novel more accessible. In the end. The people who have just heard Marlow's story are enlightened and so are we. We see the problems with men and society, we see what Conrad was saying about unrestrained men, and we see all of the intertwining messages converge in one beautiful line "The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky – seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness." This book leaves the reader with a lot to digest (mentally), so that's what I'm going to do.

Hod to page 90

I read to page 90, only 9 more pages!!! Marlow stops Kurtz from being killed or captured by the natives only to have him die slowly on the way back to Europe and be buried in a shallow, muddy grave. Then, Marlow thinks about meanings and kurtz's legacy and other stuff like that. Then some people come to get the papers Kurtz left with him and he was sentimentally stingy with them. He was very annoying towards the end of that section. The most famous line of the book appears in this section: "The horror! The horror!" The meaning of this line is up to interpretation. I personally think that it is referring to the horrors of society back then. But it could also be about the horrors he has seen/ caused or even the horrors to come.

HOD blog to page 80

I liked this part. I realize I am saying this a lot, so i must just like the book. This ten pages was all about Kurtz and Marlow. You explained the plot in class, so I won't bother to summarize it again here. This section was full of lines that I want to use as quotes for essays. The one that is most salient in my mind (probably because it was the one I read most recently) is on the last page 79 at the bottom of the first paragraph starting with though and going to the end of that paragraph (the subtext app doesn't allow me to copy text) . It beautifully summarizes Marlow's relationship with Kurtz, the Europeans and the Africans, provides a nice counterpoint for possible essay questions, and so much more. I don't know what else to talk about. I guess that is a problem with the blogging of homework (and the only problem with it): I don't know what to say because there is no specific direction. But, I think the blogging homework is great other than that.

HOD to page 70

Wow. This was an important section. Basically, Marlow's helmsman gets speared I'm the side during this battle (and dies) as he tries to shoot at the attacking natives. The people on the boat, who (or is it whom?) Marlow's calls pilgrims, shoot at the natives for a while and then the steam whistle blows and the natives scurry off. Marlow calls his shipmates "pilgrims" sarcastically/ironically because pilgrim implies that they are the first to go to a land and are there for a strongly religious purpose, when they are actually doing the opposite of that. Then Marlow throws his dead helmsman overboard so as to prevent the crew from wanting to eat him. He becomes really depressed after the attack because he thinks that Kurtz must be dead and he goes into this whole rant with the people on the ship to whom he is telling this story about Kurtz and evil and humanity etc.. They get to the station and meet two people. One of them is the man who left the annotated book (who, as it turns out, is Russian) and I'm not really share who the second man is. He wears patched clothes and Marlow calls him a harlequin. Anyway, Marlow talks to the Russian for a while and finds out that the Russian is irrationally devoted to Kurtz, finds out that kurtz has been very ill twice, hears more stories about kurtz's incredible personal nature and finds out that Kurtz frequently wanders off into the forest and pits tribes against each other and kills many in order to get ivory. This section is full of imagery, metaphors, motifs, etc.. But, most importantly, Marlow talks openly and directly about Kurtz, evil, exploitation, adventure, death, hell, the devil, and all of the underlying topics of the novel. I like this book!

Hod reading in class blog

I read five pages today in class. I ended on a cliffhanger-the steamer was being attacked with arrows! Atone point in the section, they came to a treacherous fork that looked like a mal-colored spine and had to decide which way to go. The five pages (really ten though) we're mostly about hunger, the evils and dangers and enslaving nature of hunger. Hunger was pain and darkness in this section

HOD Blog (fourth this week)

This section was super jam-packed with goodness. The first mention of heart of darkness! so basically this section is Marlow on his fixed steamer going up the river to Kurtz and all of the things they encounter and the shortage of humanity that humans possess. Unfortunately, there is no way for me to adequately describe all of the significances of the frolicking intricacies that Conrad so perfectly presents in these ten pages. The best i can hope to do is to say that this section- in the heart of the book that reveals the darkness of man and tantalizing but unfulfilling nature of dreams and desires- is the most important section of the novel

HOD BLOG

In this episode of Heart of Darkness Marlow learns more and more about his possible nemesis and possible friend, Kurtz. Meanwhile, he notices (but does not truly see) all of the hellish and evil aspects of Africa. There are some good nature phrases like "virgin forest" and "the wall of plants grew higher than a temple wall." Towards the end of this episode Marlow listens to an uncle and his nephew (who are inseparable to show the conflict between family and sociability), but he doesn't really get all of it and it's kind of confusing. what we get is a new image of Kurtz. He is revered, feared, talked smack about, and maintains a public image that is both mysterious and involved. This is exemplified by the story of him taking a crap ton of ivory to the post and then deciding to leave with four black slaves instead of seeing people. I am really liking this book

HOD blog due wednesday up to p 31

In this section of HOD, Marlow settles in at his final destination and gets to know the people in his ring of hell. To me, this section was unimportant and, therefore, forgettable. Yes, there are a lot of good lines that perpetuate the metaphors, images, etc. but nothing really big happens. This section's saving graces (double entendre) are that Marlow submits a little at the end to being in hell (by letting the barn and fields just burn) and we find out about Kurtz. We learn Kurt's official title, his job prospects and details, how grand his reputation is, and that he is basically the devil working in the heart of darkness. The rest of the chapter, though, was just filler and a lot of sarcasm. Here's my prediction based on this section: Marlow is going to meet Kurtz and he is going to love him and start hating him. once he realizes his true nature, Kurtz will die and then Marlow will realize that he has become evil too and everybody is evil in the end. Granted, i have already read the novel, but this is all derived from information in this section and a knowledge (from many years of reading) of how story lines work out.

HOD + Freud

Heart of Darkness and the Freud text we are reading have similar views on the nature of man. Freud says that men will always pursue their penchant for sex, violence, money, and other desires without consideration for others. He also says that in a society in which nobody has property and everything is shared, men will still covet, do evil, be aggressive, and be bad. Freud sees human nature as automatically bad, determined by past experiences/hardships, and inevitably predictable. he also says that men exploit each other by nature. And, Freud says that men are slaves to their desires. Conrad echoes this exactly. The whole ivory and exploration enterprise, the treatment of the Africans, the corruption, the spoils, the exploitation, and pretty much every other aspect of the book present this same view of men. Dr. Forman, good job seeing this connection! To avoid being overly-vague i will use an example. The three africans chained together, walking up a hill to do work for white men were emaciated, sick, unhappy, dead inside, and driven exclusively by fear of punishment. This shows the evil, angry, exploitative, id-centered, selfish nature of man about which Freud talks in his book. This assignment is also good because it exposes us to Freud, a man who we are all likely to study in college.

HOD 17-26 + sarcasm

Pages 17-26 detail Marlow's journey into the heart of darkness Africa. His journey is long and has a few interesting people, but it is not the main journey of the novel. All of the motifs, images, etc. that appeared in the previous pages appeared in full force in these. This section was particularly depressing... especially when he finds out his steamer sank and he has to spend months fishing out pieces so that the devil head guy in charge can make a profit. The other white guy on his journey is annoying, the accountant is corrupt and evil, and all of the natives are basically dead. I feel like this novel doesn't fit the stereotype of "all books are about one thing: 'who am I?'" Rather, it's about man, death, heaven, hell and the meaning of all of the evils. It's more meta than self-interested.

This section is also sarcastic. for example, his constant praise of the accountant and his characterization of his deals and book-keeping as perfect and honest clearly shows his disdain for the lying, corruption and exploitation of the ivory enterprise. Also, in the previous pages, he is more overtly sarcastic when he says things like "my excellent aunt" and "supernatural being." for an interpretation of the sarcasm see my previous post

HOD second blog

transitional periods for characters are always important in novels. This section of HOD is Marlow's transition from life to death to purgatory, where he interacts with his aunt, and eventually to hell. all of the images and adjectives and language and words point to this interpretation of the text. the vividity (not a real word, i know) and flow of the book is quite an achievement as well. Marlow's sarcasm also plays a big role. Yes, it changes the possible interpretations of certain events, but the sarcasm provides some much needed comedy in this book without being outright cheery (which would be too stark a contrast with the depressing nature of the rest of the book) and helps us empathize (or is it sympathize?) with Marlow. So far, this book is good. It is a little heavy-handed at times with all of the symbols and motifs etc. and sometimes depressing, but its literary merits, vivid images, and ease of reading more than make up for its faults.

heart of darkness first blog

the first ten pages of Heart of Darkness really foreshadow the rest of the book. The images and tones he uses in describing the Thames, England, the sky and water, and Africa lead to two possible motifs running through the novel. Option one: sailors chose to live on the Thames and at sea pursuing fun and adventure, the land is the world and it is never constantly good or bad, Africa is hell and so is enslaving people and the jungle and the exploitation of the societal differences between two groups of people, and the sky and ocean are heaven/god, but (notably) unattainable. Option 2: the Thames is purgatory and there are a bunch of excited and nervous dead people there who will either go and have an adventure and lead a great life (heaven) or go die trying to enslave people (hell), the land is the ever-changing world, the sky and ocean are god/heaven, and Africa is still hell. Marlow, in both options is a philosopher pondering the implications of destiny, life, death, etc. and, naturally, is excited to prove his preconceptions (philosophies) by sailing around doing stuff. the other people are just people and are ignorant to the wondrous happenings with which Marlow concerns himself. But either way, the book will end with Malow unraveling the mysteries of life and it will be a sad book because he will be in hell dreaming of heaven.