Heart of Darkness: Chapter 2
Episode
1
From:
‘One evening as I was lying flat on the deck of my steamboat’….to ‘beyond my power of meddling’.
·
Marlow overhears the manager
and his uncle hoping that the climate would finally kill Kurtz off for them.
’Anything can be done in this country’
manager says there are no limits.-
·
Finally after 3 months the
steamer is ready and Marlow is on his way to the inner station. He has a few
‘pilgrims’ and some cannibal natives as his crew: ’travelling back to the earliest
beginnings of the world’
·
Unknown territory into the
wilderness// this to the philosophical comments made by “Marlow’ and the
metaphor of the inner exploration of the mind
·
Marlow begins to feel that the
inner truth is hidden in both nature and man
·
Nature is powerful and
mysterious; the earth monstrous and free: ‘the little begrimed steamboat
‘crawling ‘like a sluggish beetle’ between ‘the high walls’ of the jungle.’ The
black man is an enigma to the explorer.
·
Primitive man as seen through the natives on
the shoreline; ‘Joy, fear, - sorrow, devotion, valour, rage described by Marlow
as ’truth stripped of its cloak of time’.
·
So was the prehistoric man
welcoming or cursing the white explorers? Marlow questions the superiority of
the white man and suggests both have their pasts in common and each are a
mystery to each other.
·
Man needs inborn strength such
as Marlow’s reliance on ‘efficiency of work’. Is this why Marlow does not
succumb to the ‘darkness’ of colonialism?
·
The description of the fireman
is another thumb-nail sketch of a character type. ‘howl and a dance’ sounds
rather racist. (Chinua Achebe- Things Fall Apart’- also essay written in
response to Conrad’s work
·
Cannibals: Fine fellows…men one
could work with!’
·
Hut on the shoreline-pile of
wood for the steamboat and sign ’approach cautiously’.
·
Book ‘An Inquiry into some
Points of Seamanship’ –an honest concern for the correct way to go about the
work of navigation.
·
Marlow knows he is getting
nearer to Kurtz and speculates about him.
Episode
2
Steamboat is attacked-black and white men capable of restraint
From: ‘Towards the evening of the second day’…to ‘Here, give me some
tobacco.’
·
The manager says it is too dark
and too dangerous to proceed and the bush seems frozen and night falls.
Daylight brings fog…another form of darkness
·
Marlow’s efficiency keeps the
boat safe and moving.
·
Pilgrims become agitated
whereas the cannibals also strangers to this part of the world are extremely
calm. Cries of terror and grief fill the air but cannibals want the pilgrims to
catch the natives for them to eat(rotten hippo meat overboard)
·
Brass rings for money-
surprised at the cannibals ‘ restraint in this atmosphere of no restraints.
Whites devouring greed-exploitation of colonialism and ivory. This is
juxtaposed by the hunger of the cannibals BUT their restraint.
·
Manager states he would be
desolated if anything happens to Kurtz!
·
This is the man who sunk the
boat, delayed the rivets and slowed down the progress of the journey
·
Natives attack the
boat-pilgrims go crazy and shoot at the forest//gunboat on the coast
·
Arrows hit the helmsman who
opened a shutter to fire at the natives. He dies with a questioning glance at
Marlow who then blows the steam whistle and sends the natives running away in
panic
·
Marlow changes his shoes, which
are full of the helmsman’s blood.
·
Marlow worries the Kurtz also
may be dead…disappointed
·
Quote page 79: ‘the gift of
expression, the bewildering, the illuminating, the most exalted and the most
contemptible, the pulsating stream of light, or the deceitful flow from the
heart of an impenetrable darkness’.
Episode 3: Marlow jumps
forward to meeting Kurtz. At the inner station there are met by the harlequin.
From: ‘There was a pause of profound stillness to the
end of Chapter 2.
·
Deep sigh from his audience
stops Marlow- first narrator takes over as Marlow lights his pipe.
·
Digresses talking of the absurd
nature of his tale when compared to these civilized men in the Nellie
·
Talks of the women and
‘beautiful world’ they live in Kurt’s intended
·
Bald Kurtz//ivory
·
Ivory in the hut taken on to
the steamer even though the manager stated it was fossil ivory(buried!)
·
Kurtz has been consumed by the
wilderness and had become a ‘chief’ of sorts.
·
He had written a report for the
International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs to write a report
for its guidance. Kurtz had written this before succumbing to ‘unspeakable
rites’…postscript stated ‘Exterminate all the brutes’
·
Marlow feels that Kurtz was not
worth the death of the helmsman.
·
Back to the narrative
·
Marlow throws the body
overboard….didn’t want the cannibals to eat it.
·
Sees the Inner Station and the
posts with balls on surrounding it…these are human skulls
·
Harlequin greets them…patchwork
clothes…Russian with a boyish face and a fear and fascination for Kurtz who
has-‘enlarged his mind’
·
