Heart of Darkness key quotes Flashcards
Between the audience
‘the bond of the sea’
Marlow’s appearance
‘Resembled of idol’; ‘pose of the Buddha, preaching in European clothes’
Efficiency
“What saves us is efficiency - the devotion to efficiency”
“Do you see the story…”
“Do you see the story? Do you see anything?…It is like I am trying to tell you a dream”
‘showing the weakness of tellers…’
‘Showing the weakness of tellers…unaware of what their audience would like to hear’
“No, not very clear…”
“No, not very clear. And yet it seemed to throw a kind of light”
“Speaking English…”
[of the Dutch businessman] “speaking English with great precision and considerable bitterness”
Drums
“drums…perhaps with as profound a meaning as bells in a Christian country”
Embassy, of Kurtz
“the mission entrusted to us by Europe….a singleness of purpose…the gang of virtue”
Principles
“Principles won’t do…you want a deliberate belief”
“The pilgrims”
describes Marlow’s men - western domination/discourse
Neighbour…
“You can’t understand. How could you?…where no warning voice of a neighbour…”
“Pure, uncomplicated savagery…”
“Pure, uncomplicated savagery…had a right to exist - obviously - in the sunlight”
“I did not betray Mr Kurtz…”
“I did not betray Mr Kurtz…I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice”
“Perhaps all the wisdom…”
“Perhaps all the wisdom, and the truth…are just compressed into the moment we step over the threshold of the invisible”
‘the serenity…’
‘The serenity became less brilliant but more profound’
Achebe
[Critical Quotes]
Framed narrative creates ‘layers of moral insulation’
Kolokotron
[Critical Quotes]
Contemporary development of a ‘deeper archaeology of consciousness’
‘Inadvertently enwrapped in…an imperialism repudiated consciously’
Conrad
[Critical Quotes]
‘at the heart of fiction…some sort of truth’
‘rescue work carried out in darkness…swaying a great multitude’
Art is ‘seldom limited to one meaning’
Symbolism can ‘cover the whole field of life’
Glendinning
{Critical Quotes]
‘Conrad could not come to terms with the death of God … as generally accepted affirmative principle, a premise of universal meaning and social good’
Brooks
[Critical Quotes]
Genette’s tripartite distinction - ‘everything must eventually be recovered on the plane of narrating’
‘the impossibility of original narrative, the need to retell, places the primary emphasis on the plane of narration itself’
‘needs to read Heart of Darkness as more of an act of narration than a narrative’
‘meaning will never lie in the summing-up but only in transition’
Peter Brooks
Framed narrative means that we doubt the truth - placed farther and farther
Why does Marlow not tell the Intended the truth?
‘It would have been too dark - too dark altogether..’
