Do not go gentle into that good night
Rage rage against the dying of the light
—Me taking the advice of Dylan Thomas last Thursday when completing the AP Lit exam
Do not go gentle into that good night
On Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness #1
Source: ChildOfTheSea on deviantART
What do you make of the strange episode of the fire and hole in the bottom of the watering pail? What does this event contribute to Marlow’s and the reader’s sense of European life in Africa?
In one scene of the novel, a storage hut filled with fine textiles and other goods catches on fire. A stout European rushes to the hut with a near-bottomless pail of leaking water and attempts to extinguish the flames. Nearby, another European mercilessly beats an African accused of arson.
This single event—and the imagery it conveys—captures the general reality in Europe’s colonial ambitions in Africa. The burning hut and treasures symbolize the pillaging the Europeans committed upon “conquering” the African continent, while the near-bottomless pail embody their futile attempt to conceal their true ruthless, greedy ways. The tortured African, of course, receives the blame as the Europeans deny admitting the fallacies in their agenda. However, one can also view this as a forewarning for the Europeans’ closer march to self destruction: their reckless attitude (their fire) towards nature and fellow humans to feed the neverending hunger for riches and power will end up devouring and consuming them entirely, their near-bottomless pail too futile to reverse the atrocities. Presumably, the end product would be nothing more than “a heap of embers glowing fiercely” as a reminder of all the bitterness and destruction that once was, acknowledging that all motives for conquering Africa were “hopeless from the very first.”
In a way, the latter interpretation of this event parallels the regression of Kurtz. Kurtz’s path to infamy is as fiery and destructive as that of the Europeans’ rise to power in Africa. His obsession with the power he has attained disconnected him from any real sense of how the world supposedly works, and eventually transmogrifies to resemble the things that have complete control over him. Thus, upon Kurtz’s death, Marlow describes his head similar to that of an “ivory ball,” his body reduced to “an animated image of death carved out of old ivory.”
John Updike: The Witches of Eastwick
“Have you never fancied somebody that you didn’t like very much?” Knightley says in explaining her character’s wildly conflicting emotions. “I think you can despise somebody, but you can’t help but feel an attraction toward them, which is where the entire relationship, from her point of view, starts.”
Thoughts on Conrad’s Heart of Darkness—Chapter 1
- “Pilgrims” — prospectors, whose religion is wealth, money, and greed
- Wrecked steamboat — what is it a symbol for? It is missing rivets, everyone else around the river isn’t taking care of it… Is it hinting that no true motion, no progress is being made? Or that things that carry life are being destroyed, raped—the steamboat “carcass,” the forest, the native people?
Crime? What crime?” he cried in sudden fury. “That I killed a vile noxious insect, an old pawnbroker woman, of use to no one!… Killing her was atonement for forty sins. She was sucking the life out of poor people. Was that a crime? I am not thinking of it and I am not thinking of expiating it, and why are you all rubbing it in on all sides? ‘A crime! a crime!’ Only now I see clearly the imbecility of my cowardice, now that I have decided to face this superfluous disgrace. It’s simply because I am contemptible and have nothing in me that I have decided to, perhaps too for my advantage, as that… Porfiry… suggested!
—Has Raskolnikov changed at all?
Oh Tumblr…
You lost all of the hard thinking and typing that I had done :(
Crime and Punishment Annotations (3.1)
—The underlying theme of the individual struggle vs. community/societal struggle
—Themes and Dostoevsky’s beliefs about truth and life.
—Ulterior motives
Crime and Punishment Annotations (2.7)
—Review of Marmaledov’s influence on Raskolnikov: M’s background—especially that of his daugther Sonya’s—evoked contempt in R. Sonya’s story has a profound effect on how R would view Dounia’s engagement with Luzhin.
—Is he trying to repay M?
—It’s interesting to note Katerina Ivanovna’s response to her husband’s injury: she already expects that he will die, and does not give him any odds at surviving.
—Life and religion are not with the destitute.
—Destitution has broken down human connections, dignity for many.
—Similar to Light in August’s Gail Hightower: he recognizes that unexplainable revelation about life and begins to appreciate it. However, as he noticed this and finally resolved his problems in life, of course as a literary firgure, he dies.
