Our time has come

Our time has come. There are only so many things I can say. It came a while ago. So please leave me alone. We can continue to dwell on the past but it will get us nowhere. I can no longer deal with the push and pull, the constant torment. We are done.

No I cannot kiss you again! Since there is no help, what kind of a lie is that? Even if there is no help, did you even try? The only way to know if there is no help is if you try. What is life if you don’t try?

See that was always the problem, you are so wishy washy, so easily discouraged. Trust me I don’t want any more of you. I have had too much, more than any one person can stand. Please keep those vulgar lips at a distance.

Those sound like the confident utterances of a joyful man. Don’t insult me though, to pretend like not even a part of your heart is aching is not only cruel, it is wholly impossible to believe.

Why are you lying to yourself, you are the one who dragged me out here anyway. So cleanly… you call this clean? Who do you think you are fooling?

Which vows? The quite nothings you whispered in my ear, those same words all couples say to one another. We never married; you never set any promises in stone, what are these vows you speak of? The generic vows of all couples were slowly shattered as our relationship progressed.

When? Try IF we ever meet again, do not expect me—after all of this—to continue showing up in your life! Even if we find ourselves standing next to one another, I will be invisible to you, and you to me.

(by now haven't we both had enough?)

Ha, you were concerned that we would struggle to hold back our past feelings? Don’t fret it shall be no problem! I never want anyone to be able to detect even the slightest hints of the most basic friendship between us. Our brows will be as creaseless as they come.

He had to stop breathing sooner or later, join the rest of us who are all slowly dying. We both shall soon follow.

Death of a relationship is enough to make anyone speechless, anyone but you that is.

I have had enough now! If only you would let it go.

Seriously? Have you not put me through enough pain already, please? I understand, but I must now open my eyes. The dark is only tolerable for so long.

Must you really ask more of me, now, after all is said and done? I was doing fine until you forced to me relive this. Can you please leave me be, let me recover?

Me? After all this exquisite pain, you want me to do you a favor?






Are you trying to torture me, how will I ever move forward now?


(495)

Literally "Going Wrong"

I personally feel that if one is to connect two characters, one from Heart of Darkness, the other from Waiting for the Barbarians, they are Mr. Kurtz and Colonel Joll. First and foremost, these two characters occupy the same role in each story; they are antagonistic and still have many parallels to the title character, Marlow and the Magistrate respectively.

Most people would probably draw the connection to Mr. Kurtz and the Magistrate (as well as the Colonel, a sort of reflection of the Magistrate) as Douglas Kerr does in “Three Ways of Going Wrong: Kipling, Conrad, Coetzee.” However just because these are the characters to “go native” does not mean they are both the characters to go wrong. Yet, it is not simply a story of going right versus wrong, cut black and white, across a clear line, in either case. Simply, I disagree with the manner Kerr presents his idea because it puts so much of an emphasis on going native that is wrong; however, presented in both texts, in one case going partially native is what is so wrong and in the other refusing to even pretend to go native was the mistake.

As far as Waiting for the Barbarians is concerned, while we see that the Magistrate is a confused and imperfect being, we do not view him so much as “going wrong” as much just having been wrong. On the other hand, it is easy to see the Colonel as “going wrong.” He refuses to accept the help presented and out of ignorance and misguided or just plain bad values and literally goes wrong with the choices he makes. We watch him torture and kill innocent (or at least helpless) outsiders and lead an army into a dangerous situation for reasons clearly other than those fabricated.

Similarly Kurtz literally “goes wrong” as well. Granted, here Kurtz does go native, it is the retention of his European values and desires (greed, fame) that lead him to his “going wrong” and eventual demise. He accepts native culture in a way mirror to the way the Colonel refuses it. The Colonel won’t accept and makes foolish decisions in the absence of it. Kurtz accepts it but make foolish decisions (different to the Magistrates) in its presence.

While the Magistrate was no saint and did not necessarily go right. He grew from his original wrongness while Kurtz and the Colonel continue to go wrong until both destroy themselves in one way or another. (414)

Opening Thoughts on Waiting for the Barbarians

As far as an initial reaction is concerned, what an interesting opening sentence, right from the get go I was curious to keep reading. “I have never seen anything like it: two little discs of glass suspended in front of his eyes in loops of wire” sets up a comprehendible yet foreign background, and a clear narrative point of view. The narrator captures quite a bit in twenty-two words strung together so elegantly.

The magistrate heavily describes the appearance and attitude of an outsider from the inner parts of the empire with great detail for the first few pages. Which makes one wonder what the intention is and what the effects are of starting the book with someone (something as we will later grow to view him) who is not representative of the narrator or the setting for the novel. Yet as the story progresses seems to clearly show the past and current situations of the compound and the magistrate as succinctly as possible.

Stylistically, I think it was smart to begin the novel with so much conjecture. “The capital,” “home,” and then several more pages until either become associated with the place at large, “the empire.” On top of all of this, there is the gossip as well; first the gossip that Coronal Joll’s bureau is the most important. The conjecture sets up the lens the author wishes us to view the novel through. On of skepticism and questioning, so that we the audience will, like the main character the magistrate, use an inquisitive frame of mind when reading this novel and most likely see parallels he is trying to draw to any number of places and ideas.

The style in which the beginning is writing is one that essentially begs the reader to search for one’s own interpretation of the goings on in the novel, and my associative properties, in ones own world.

(315)

Don't You Hate Titles That Have Nothing To Do With The Content?

Quick summary of Ian Watt's "Impressionism and Symbolism in Heart of Darkness."

Watt spends almost no time discussing his thesis/title; he also fails to answer the questions and propositions he introduces. He spends most of the article talking about other people and other stories which will not help you understand impressionism or symbolism in Heart of Darkness; so I am going to sum up the sparse details that pertain to these ideas here.

Marlow has a very special kind of story telling invoking two distinctive qualities, roughly categorized as symbolist and impressionist.

Impressionism

Mist or haze is a good example of impressionism.

Conrad was called an "impressionistic realist" long before impressionism was widely discussed.

Conrad was known to speak against specifically being an impressionist despite now being categorized as one.

Heart of Darkness essentially impressionist in one "special and yet general way," it accepts and asserts the enigmatic nature of individual understanding. Marlow explores how ones own knowledge of another can change the way he sees the world as a whole mysteriously.

In narration, Conrad captures how humans perceive something immediately but then takes time to figure out what it means. Watts calls this delayed decoding and believes it assists the impressionist nature of Heart of Darkness.


Symbolism

Fundamental intellectual mode of symbolism is religion and imagination.

Conrad, though writing about his disconnect with the French Symbolist he also exposed major commonality in between his and their basic attitudes. They can be split into two major categories: ontological (relating to the essence and nature of being) and expressive (vision beyond the work's overt statements).

Conrad asserted that he wrote straight from the heart in an attempt to give a true impression. He wanted to "connect the small world of a ship with the larger world carrying perplexities, affections, rebellions." (360 cited from David R. Smith)

"Conrad is in general accord with the symbolist ontology; as regards to expressive technique the parallels are somewhat closer." 361

"If Conrad belongs to the symbolist tradition, it is only in a limited, eclectic and highly idiosyncratic way." 363

Heart of Darkness however typifies in many respects French Symbolist tendencies. Its plot represents a symbolic quest towards darkness in many different ways. Wants to represent "the infinite in the finite"

(375)

Marlow, A Man of Many Faces (All of Which are White)

In section II of Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, Marlow dedicates a chunk of his narration to describing the surreal atmosphere of his journey into the prehistoric unknown and the “savages” on the sides of the river (page 35-36). I found this passage particularly interesting because Marlow, a man of a different generation with different social norms, seems to look more kindly upon the natives than most of the other characters do and most people of that day and age would towards a black person. Even with this apparent kindness of perception towards these natives (not enemies and certainly not criminals) there is still clearly as presented in this passage a obvious sense of “looking down” on the “prehistoric [men]” (35). When talking about the setting, how serene and “unknown” the terrain was at night, Marlow recalls how you would just go around a corner and there would be “a glimpse of… hands clapping, of feet stamping, of bodies swaying, of eyes rolling under the droop of heavy and motionless foliage…. Of a black and incomprehensible frenzy” (35). The way he recalls the natives in the night is almost like aliens, how they are like “phantoms” floating by this world unknown. Almost as if they were not both human, though often elsewhere he insists on stating their inherent humanity. Marlow seems to be a man torn between the views of his time and his own personal understandings (his own understandings seems to be torn in multiple directions as well), telling a tale about problems of imperialism.

I am not sure myself if Marlow’s disparity in his views of the natives adds, subtracts or does neither to the text, what do you think?

(283)

The Disorder of Things

The article I picked is called “Faulkner: Technique of "The Sound and the Fury."” This article analyzes Faulkner’s technique, arrangement of sections, purpose and effectiveness of the novel. I personally enjoy that Bowling takes into account the importance of the order of the novel. He states that many people believe the novel would be more effective if presented in a different manner, most specifically putting Benji’s section at the end because it is impossible to fully understand without the knowledge of the following sections. Bowling argues that the point of the novel, beyond showing the happenings of Caddy, is to show the utter lack of perspective present in the Compson family (symbolic of the social “disorder”). If one agrees with that being the second most important theme, presenting a section that not only lacks perspective but a narrator who is completely unable to have a perspective is a great way to begin the novel!

I think my favorite part of this article is where Bowling says “Although such capriciousness makes Quentin’s mental processes difficult to follow, this is no mere personal whim on the part of the author to make the section unduly perplexing. Even in the most complex and realistic passages, Faulkner has greatly simplified Quentin’s mental processes in order that the reader may be able to understand them.” The idea that Quentin’s section is probably the hardest to understand (Benji’s was harder to follow, but Quentin, since he is so deeply troubled and intellectual, is much harder to comprehend in entirety) and yet, it is simplified from what his character, had he been real would have really thought. With that in mind, just trying to expand upon what is already presented in Quentin’s section gives me a headache.

I think it is some great food for though! (299)

Bowling, Lawrence E. "Faulkner: Technique of "The Sound and the Fury"" The Kenyon Review 10.4 (1948): 552-56. JSTOR. Web. 29 Oct. 2009. .

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Why does Quentin break the watch?

I mean he doesn’t even break the watch fully! He crushes the glass, twists off the hands and yet the watch still ticks and the face is presumably still remains. I highly doubt that he was unable to make the swatch stop ticking entirely; so, why on the last day break the watch only sort of?

His father gave him the watch to keep track of time and so “that [he] might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it” (76). That must have been too much to ask of him because we see what he does to the watch. I thought maybe Quentin saw it as his path to breaking time. And that was essentially what the whole day was about, was it not? He is out to create order in his life before he stops time. He utilized the time on his last day to prepare to break it and kill himself. The watch breaking may have been preparation for suicide; it was a family heirloom that he was ruining, something valuable that has history. He is something more valuable, has a similar history to the watch and he is going to do more than just sort of break himself later. I know many may think it is breaking time, but if he were to really do that, wouldn’t he stop it from ticking? I really think he was breaking from his family and practicing for the moment when he going to break with time forever more.