The hardest part about this novel is not completely realizing everything that is going on in the story. After only reading three pages yesterday, the discussion today had me lost and so I had to read the 24 pages twice just to understand what exactly was happening. I imagine it will get easier as we go.
This second section of the reading continues the story that we left in the first section. Marlow has been describing his journey in the Congo. There were no narration changes in this section. An interesting point about Marlow is that he is working for the Belgium coalition instead of the British. When Marlow observes the map in the office he can see that the Belgium Empire in Africa is very apparent. They are the main “stock holders” and show this through their vast amounts of wealth and the terror they rain on the natives. Darkness plays a part in this area of the story with the two women that are knitting black wool. They seem to be “guarding” the door to the office while Marlow waits to see if he gets the charter. He mentions that it he feels as though the door they are guarding is darkness. As he passes through the darkness he “sees” light by receiving the job. The black and white theme continues from here to the point where Marlow heads toward Central Station. The natives are terrible, savage like people and whites are preferred.
Other things that need to be pointed out are the state of the Congo and attire. There isn’t really any order to it at this time in his story. A lot of violence and blood shed is occurring. Many lives are lost. As for the clothing, Conrad seems to emphasize alot on the appearance of those whom he meets. Their appearance appears to give him their life story and they are placed in categories of achievement according to this.
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5 comments:
Nick-
I agree with you about not really being able to understand what was going on in the story. It took me a little while in order to figure out certain parts of the plot as well. Another part of this section of reading that I found interesting was the character of the accountant. Marlow prefaced his recollection of him by saying that he wasn’t important. Yet, he ended up devoting several pages to the description of his office and surroundings. The accountant symbolizes that at the heart of the company, everything is organized. But as the focus is expanded and observations are made of the rest of the people working there, it becomes chaotic and disheveled. I noted, as did you, how Marlow talks about the character’s physical appearance because he believes that carries merit about whether or not that person is capable is his position.
I completely agree. Some parts of this novel are hard to figure out what is going on. In his writing he keeps switching from the narrator and Marlow. He also uses different sentence structure than we are used to. However, I think it is interesting how he is comparing black and white and I wonder how this story will end. I'm glad we go over what we read in class or else I would be somewhat lost.
Also, when Marlow observes the map, he thinks about the blank spaces on it and is attracted to them. This is because no one has been there and he liked the idea of adventuring to somewhere no one has been.
Nice job observing the two women knitting wool and what it meant. I totally did not catch how they were the "guards" guarding the darkness and he has to pass through them to get to the "light" the first time I read it.
Hopefully this reading will get easier as we get used to it...
Hey Nick,
I also agree with that many parts of this novel were a bit tough to understand. I was aware of the difficult-ness of reading this book, but when I first started reading i was like whoaa, harder than I thought. It was like the level of language usage by the author caught me off guard.
Speaking of "guard", I did not even think about the two women that were knitting the black wool as guards for the office door when Marlow goes to get the charter. That was a good point.
I honestly think by reading these different blogs of our classmates is interesting because it is like something different stands out to everyone.
I also hope that the reading will get easier as we go along as well.
Nice blog!
-Ieysha
Nick--good post!
Alex, Katie, and Ieysha--good comments!
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