Heart of Darkness

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Heart of Darkness

• Summer Assignment 2006

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What was this book about anyway?

• seafaring
• riverboating
• trade and exploration
• imperialism and colonialism
• race relations
• the attempt to find meaning in the universe
• while trying to get at the mysteries of the
• subconscious mind.

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Structure

• Framed narrative
• Group of men (former sailors, now businessmen)
• Marlow narrator
• Traveler
• Excellent storyteller
• Sympathetic
• Searching for meaning
• Kurtz embodiment of Marlows quest

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Style

• Verbose
• Lengthy descriptions
• Lengthy dialogues
• seem pointless
• dont move the story along at all
• reinforces themes and motifs

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Themes
Imperialism Hypocritical Cruel and
harsh Attemps to justify Drives men to
madness Evil Cruelness of imperialism Lesser of
two evils

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• Task
• Your task is threefold.
• First, you will examine five literary
  criticisms Psychoanalytic, Post-colonial, reader
  response theory, Deconstruction, and Feminist.
• Second, you must become familiar with one type
  of literary criticism.
• Third, you must use this critical approach to
  interpret passages from Heart of Darkness (five
  total passages). In other words, you must read
  these passages as a psychoanalytical,
  post-colonial, reader response,
  deconstructionist, or feminist critic.

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www.iss.k12.nc.us/schools/nihs/dlourcey/APDarkness
webquest.html

• As you examine these criticisms, you may
  collaborate with your group members. Help each
  other discover the nuances of each help each
  other validate the meaning of each in modern
  contemporary literary crticism and, help each
  provide relevance to Conrad's work.
• To achieve these tasks, you and your group
  members will follow Marlow up the Congo River.
  Along the way, you will be visiting links,
  recording your observations in your Congo Diary
  (via www.journalscape.com/MsLaws) reading
  important excerpts from Heart of Darkness, and
  finally posting your critical interpretations on
  our message board.  

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www.iss.k12.nc.us/schools/nihs/dlourcey/APDarkness
webquest.html
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• Examine each literary criticism.
• Decide which type of literary criticism you will
  be for this novel examination and answer the
  corresponding questions in the Congo diary at
  www.journalscape.com/Mslaws.
• Revisit each location in Conrads journey through
  the heart of darkness (these will be given to
  you). Each station has a passage, and you are to
  individually respond to each passage from the
  perspective of the literary criticism you chose.
  Each response must be supported by references
  from the text and follow MLA guidelines.

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Psycho-analytical criticism

• Theories of Sigmund Freud as a basis
• Use these to explore the motivations of
  characters, symbolic meaning of events, and
  describe and analyze the readers response to a
  text.
• Oedipus/Electra Complex is central to this
  criticism

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Post-Colonial criticism

• A cultural criticism
• Refers to the analysis of works written about
  colonial countries by writers from a colonizing
  country.
• Many of these analyses point out how the writers
  from the colonial power sometimes misrepresent
  the other cultures by reflecting their own
  values.

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Reader Response Theory

• Focuses more on the reader than the work
• Describes what goes on in the readers mind while
  reading
• The construction of the text within the reader

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Feminist criticism

• Sociological criticism
• Explains how the images of women reflect the
  social forces that have impeded womens efforts
  to be equal to men
• Use history, sociology, and language to
  provide a perspective that is sensitive to
  feminist issues

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Station checkpoints

• The Docks pp. 11 12
• The Outer Station pp. 20 22 (instead peace)
• The Central Station - pp. 31 32 (I was
  notthere)
• The Inner Station pp. 47 49 (I laidmoment)
• The Sepulchral City 69 72 (the duskdarkness)
• Keep in mind that you should be reading the
  passage through the eyes of the literary critic
  that you researched. Ask yourself, "What would
  this sort of critic look for? Why?" Please be
  very mindful of plagiarism.