as much as I enjoyed this novel and the fact that it was one of the few fiction readings rather than what we have been focusing mainly on, I am a little unclear about how this is considered a remake/remodel of the last reading.
As per usual, it always takes me a little research to find out more about the books and to understand them more, but with this book especially, I had to take my research up a little, especially with all the symbolism and just the allegory content of this that I just couldn’t understand on my own.
Aside from the interesting texts, themes and motifs, one thing that really grabbed my attention was the title. Im the kind of person that gets really attracted to the title and the cover.
What exactly is the heart of darkness? It’s really weird to me. When I think of darkness, I think of black, heartless, cold.. the heart of darkness..would it be what is the cause of darkness? What is the center of darkness? Darkness and the heart of itself and within? I dont know my mind is really jumbled right now.
I need to read the book again now that I’ve read about the symbolisms and themes behind a lot of things because to be honest I was really confused the whole book.
I feel like we’ll have a lot of interesting questions in seminar so I cant wait to share my thoughts..hopefully I’ll have gathered up better things to say about the book.
ciao.
We weren’t thinking of this text as a remake of the last one…rather, this is a text that itself gets remade later. The film Apocalypse Now is a remaking of this work, and we get a very different view of Africa and the Europeans coming to it in Achebe’s novel for next week. Conrad’s novella doesn’t really have that much to do with de Beauvoir, except insofar as this novella also could be said to talk about “otherness,” though not in quite such direct terms, and also that Conrad’s text does take up issues of absurdity that are existentialist themes. But we weren’t really thinking of this text as that closely related to de Beauvoir’s. It’s just how the weeks lined up that these two got paired together for essay topics!
And the question about just what is the heart of darkness in this text is a good one that I want to talk about in seminar for sure!