We are supposed to be reading Heart of Darkness this weekend in Brit Lit, which means we made it through the Victorian period and are on our way into the modernists. Yay, Virginia Wolf! Yay, T.S. Eliot! Okay, Joyce, you can come in, but don't stay long. I don't want to get caught up in a syntactical logic-warp. It's too late for that kind of thing. To kick off our time with the modernists, we have read some of Hardy's poetry -- you have to love this man's cynacism, just don't fall in love with a cynic because they will be skeptical that you love them -- and I have to say, I just love a man who admits that no matter how cheery things seem, there is something wan in even the most colorful of experiences. He's so good as an equalizer and as a response to the Victorian sense that everything that is perfect is right around the corner. Not in this life, Hardy says, and even goes on to say, probably never. Oh, and did you know that we don't actually talk about Naturalism in British Lit? Why is that?
Conrad's work is a whole other ball of wax. Even amidst all the doom and failure of imperialism there is this sense that there are people who are in positions of power who do not accept the traditions that are handed down to them. Well, I'm not sure you would call Marlowe a man in a position of power, but if you look at capitalist societies and view the working class as a group heavy with the possibility of having the most power, then you could see him as representative of a powerful group that rejects the ideals of imperialism, and maybe even look at the superficial end of colonization in this particular manner -- this manner of striking a flag in the ground and declaring this land in the name of whatever (hmmm, freeedom, anyone? democracy, anyone?), and capturing all the inhabitants of a region as chattel. What I mean is the face of imperialism has changed, with possibly less suffering, or different suffering, because people like Marlowe could see that the ends didn't justify the means, by looking at the means. Marlowe sees imperialism in action, and from day one can hardly stomach it.
Yet Conrad is...not British? Oh, right. He's Polish, Swiss, and eventually, British. When you hear this, you smack yourself on the head and go, of course he could write about the evils of imperialism -- he is an alien, a foreigner, an observer. It's so much harder to look at your own country, your own environment, and describe with such clarity and understanding its moral weaknesses and fractured manifestos. The great thing is that Marlowe tends not to cast too much judgement when witnessing injustice. When his aunt declares him practically a saint for taking Western Civilization to Africa, he calls it so much blather and nonsense. He knows he is there to make money, and won't take stock in any of this "civilizing" talk. Then, when the doctor wants to measure his head, he lets him, but he doesn't really think there is anything to it. When he sees the men on the canoe for the first time at sea, he describes them as looking so natural, emphasizing how unnatural his ship and crew are as they motor down the coast. Through the text he speaks the internal questions and reactions that tend to stay hidden. In this way Conrad vocalizes Western guilt and shame. Shame seems to be a dominant theme of the novella.
I know this piece is short, but I wish we were taking more time in discussing it. It is one of the more brilliant things to come out of England. Or Poland. Or the West.
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