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.

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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"

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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?

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