Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Heart of Darkness
In Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Conrad portrays the blacks as being very weak and inferior to the rest of society through the use of imagery. In one specific part of the book, Conrad is describing the scene that he saw at one time during his adventure: "Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth..." (Conrad, 83). Through this quote, Conrad is using imagery in order to describe the black's deteriorating health. He describes them as "clinging to the earth" and this doesn't mean that they are actually holding onto the earth, rather they are clinging to survival. This quote shows that the blacks are slowly dying and they are fighting to survive. Since they are barely surviving, the blacks are shown to be very weak. Their physical weakness can cause them to be weak socially also. Conrad also describes the blacks as "black shapes". By referring to them as black shapes rather than actual people, he is creating the idea that these people are pointless in society. Classifying them as shapes makes it seem like they have no purpose in life and they are just objects, rather than human beings. This quote causes them to be shown as both pyhsically and socially weak. Being socially weak means that they are inferior to the rest of the society. Conrad shows that the blacks are weak and inferior to the rest of society based on this quote which uses imagery to state this idea. He shows them as being weak in order to illustrate the way that they were treated during the time that the book is taking place in.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hailey, I really like how you interpreted the quote as the slaves were clinging to survival when it says they were 'clinging to the earth'. As you said, Conrad portrays the slaves as objects instead of actual people. I think you could also look at it as if they are being portrayed as animals because of the fact that they have to rely on the white men in order to stay alive. The slaves ultimately have no control over their survival, and must live with the fact that the white men have total control. This makes the slaves throughout the story inferior to everyone else. Otherwise you had a great analysis of this quote! :)
ReplyDeleteHaley, I think you did a really great job at interpreting each part of this quote. When I read this I only associated it with being physically weak and didn't see how it had a social component to it too. Through Conrad's imagery the reader gets the idea that the Africans are too exhausted from being overworked and underfed that they don't even communicate with one another, taking even more away from their social strength and communication. The reference to them as black shapes shows how insignificant they are as humans. Another way to look at it is how the white men only use them to do hard labor and to sell for a profit; this makes them seem much like animals. The fact that the black man are completely dependent on their white male owner for necessities could be seen as them being animal like too. Overall awesome job of analyzing each part of the quote and the uncovering the messages behind Conrad’s word choice.
ReplyDelete