What If? Heart of [Darkness]

Stories have layers and layers of complexities. There's an aesthetic aspect, a poetic aspect, a lingual aspect, a narrative aspect, etc. It's this kind of multiplicity that composes Heart of Darkness. Having an idea of 'darkness' also helps promote the sense of multiplicity. By having such a dissension of information pertaining to the meaning of actual darkness, we are able to explore how the various senses of darkness promote each other.

Throughout the novel Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad the title word 'darkness' is repeated in other specific places. Conrad plays with the concept of darkness against light in order to add confusion and reflect the experience found in Marlow's disorientation and adversative perspectives. But what would happen if you took the darkness out of Heart of Darkness?

HEART OF by Joseph Conrad

A European seaman is sent into the Congo, a very happy place all the time. He meets a bunch of really nice vegetarians that attack him with a fusillade of love. A really sunny person named Kurtz happily shares ivory with everyone. He's really healthy. He talks about his Intended all the time. The last thing we hear him say is her name. 

Maybe not.

But in reality, the book would lack the crucial layer that really makes it what it is. Having this sense of darkness not only adds to the disorientation, but adds to the focus. When Marlow returns to Europe, we get the first real sense of how darkness has built the story. Thus far, we've thought darkness was the Congo. Darkness was the disorientation. Darkness was the world unknown. But once Marlow returns, he sees how ignorant the Europeans are. In a sense, they themselves are in their own sense of darkness and blindness--oblivion. Maybe it isn't the Congo that caused the darkness; maybe it's the Congo that caused the light. Maybe the darkness wasn't only a physical darkness, but a mental darkness.


Closing sentence is in the dark for added effect of confusion. 

Blogging Around Número Dos

First post of 2013! 

Jordan's blog post about her intellectual challenge with close-mindedness. She describes effects of being close-minded and why she wishes to change. 

Jordan, you address a challenge that I think a lot of us face. I don't think close-minded necessarily means being pessimistic, so don't fret! But I do agree that being open-minded perspectives usually lead to happiness. Being able to see a subject in it's entirety places less emphasis on the negatives, and leads to less aggravation. We can't know everything about our world, no matter how much we all admit to ourselves that we know best. When it comes to learning, lets be honest: it's hard to buckle down and admit that what we're learning will actually be beneficial to our intellectual experience. It comes down to our guiding question: "To what degree do I understand that which I'm about to reject?" As we face an intellectual challenge, it's easier to shut down. But if we focus on opening our minds we can see far beyond the challenge. Great post!

Kira's post reflecting on steps to writing her poem. She tells the story behind her poem and steps she took to make an emotional investment in the poem. 

I love the backstory to your poem, Kira! I really like the line, "Important moments do not equal important events".  Milestones in our lives are only milestones because of the journey it took to get there. And journeys are composed of little snippets of memories that may be simple or seemingly worthless, but are unique only to us. We tend to get caught up in the big things and don't stop to appreciate the little ones, people we've met, insights we've heard, the beginning to a love story like the one in your poem. Buried in those things are our emotions. I like that you took something personal to someone else and invested an emotional connection in it, making it personal to you too. Great post, great poem.