First: re-read paragraphs 24-29 in Part III, beginning with “I think I would have raised an outcry…” to “And yet I had only supported him, his bony arm clasped round my neck—and he was not much heavier than a child.”
Remember what Marlow tells his listeners earlier in his tale?— ”It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream—making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams…” If this episode, in which Marlow pursues Kurtz and confronts him in the brush at night, were a dream sequence, what sort of dream would it be and where would it be set? Would it be too much to say this dream is a nightmare and the setting is an earthly representation of hell?
Second: re-read paragraph 48, beginning “However, as you see, I did not go to join Kurtz there and then.” In this passage, which is in part an impressionistic account of Marlow's near-fatal illness on his return trip, he speaks of Kurtz in terms of “loyalty” and “destiny,” and comments that the best “you can from from it is some knowledge of yourself…”
He “affirm[s] that Kurtz was a remarkable man” and says that although he, Marlow, “peeped over the edge” of what we might call a spiritual abyss and seems to have lived through Kurtz's “extremity” rather than his own, “he [Kurtz] had stepped over the edge while I had been permitted to draw back my hesitating foot.”
This is some heavy stuff. Why does Marlow say he has “remained loyal to Kurtz to the last, and even beyond…” and why is he so impressed by Kurtz's final cry—”The horror!”—that he calls the cry “an affirmation, a moral victory paid for by innumerable defeats…”?
A lot to chew on here - make darn sure you're reading others posts and, if you are responding directly to one of the other students, as you should, hit the reply button beneath their post. It is not enough to say "as others have said", etc. You should pick up on a specific, arguable idea and deepen it. I'll be stingy with the 7 pointers on this one.
As you've no doubt seen, the blog prompts have a significant effect on your grade, as they should. Let's bring it.
Remember what Marlow tells his listeners earlier in his tale?— ”It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream—making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams…” If this episode, in which Marlow pursues Kurtz and confronts him in the brush at night, were a dream sequence, what sort of dream would it be and where would it be set? Would it be too much to say this dream is a nightmare and the setting is an earthly representation of hell?
Second: re-read paragraph 48, beginning “However, as you see, I did not go to join Kurtz there and then.” In this passage, which is in part an impressionistic account of Marlow's near-fatal illness on his return trip, he speaks of Kurtz in terms of “loyalty” and “destiny,” and comments that the best “you can from from it is some knowledge of yourself…”
He “affirm[s] that Kurtz was a remarkable man” and says that although he, Marlow, “peeped over the edge” of what we might call a spiritual abyss and seems to have lived through Kurtz's “extremity” rather than his own, “he [Kurtz] had stepped over the edge while I had been permitted to draw back my hesitating foot.”
This is some heavy stuff. Why does Marlow say he has “remained loyal to Kurtz to the last, and even beyond…” and why is he so impressed by Kurtz's final cry—”The horror!”—that he calls the cry “an affirmation, a moral victory paid for by innumerable defeats…”?
A lot to chew on here - make darn sure you're reading others posts and, if you are responding directly to one of the other students, as you should, hit the reply button beneath their post. It is not enough to say "as others have said", etc. You should pick up on a specific, arguable idea and deepen it. I'll be stingy with the 7 pointers on this one.
As you've no doubt seen, the blog prompts have a significant effect on your grade, as they should. Let's bring it.
