Confusing characters and connections galore

In Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, we are presented with quite a confusing character by the name of Marlow. Marlow is the narrator of the book, but he is so much more than that. He is the heart of the book. He is who takes you on this journey with him. Although he is the heart of the book, he is also, so far, the hardest character for me to wrap my head around. He seems like a ball of self-contradiction. For example, he acknowledges that the work he assigned to do may not be the best, but he continues to do it anyway. Although he knows that the work he was assigned to assist with is bad, it doesn't make him innocent because he chooses to partake in the work regardless. If anything, this makes him worse of a guy because he is choosing to ignore his subconscious morals. Another character that intrigues me is Kurtz. I think this character intrigues everyone because he is such a mystery. I have many questions involving this character. Why does everyone love him so much? What is he planning to do with Marlow? What is he willing to do to achieve his goals?… That last question may have sounded a bit dark but the little knowledge about him I am left with seems to always fester itself into a form of intense darkness. I’m not sure exactly why I get weird vibes from this guy, but because he is such a removed, stand offish character, I can’t help but feel like only bad things are going to be tied with him. I can’t help but feel that he is going to take Marlow and twist and pollute his brain into thinking that the natives truly are the enemy. Even though I am worried Marlow’s views on the natives will become drastically worse, I am completely aware that as long as I have a reaction, Conrad does his job as a writer. There’s just no way Marlow will ever be able to see the side of the natives because of how much his image of them is pre-conceivably shaped. Not only that, but he is specifically there to “fix” (for a lack of a better term) the natives, so even IF he wished to be open to the ideas of the natives, there’s no way that would ever happen because that would contradict his mission.

Aside from Marlow and Kurtz, there’s a crazy amount connections I’m finding between this book and Things Fall Apart as well as An Image of Africa. First, I can tell that the views presented in this book are so biased because whenever they mention the native people, or “savages” as they would say, I always think about how Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and how the natives had a reason behind everything they did, but how much the white people do not see that. In this book, the colonizers just see it as mad, intent-less behavior. Because I’m able to see the two sides of this situation, it makes me sad for the white people who are so stuck in their own culture that they are unable to remove themselves from it enough to see that they are not the only important ones in the world. Although it makes me upset, it goes back to the idea of Conrad’s success as a writer because of my reaction.

This book has made me on edge so far because of how much we still have to learn about the characters and their influences of the natives. I guess I’ll just have to keep reading to find out how everyone is shaped by one another!

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Summer vs. Winter- The Battle of the Season

After reading Chapter 20 of How to Read Literature Like a Professor, ... So Does Season, so many things began to make sense about seasons. Of course we all knew winter equals bad and summer equals good, but it surprised me how little detail I actually knew about the complexity of how important seasons are. I never even took into account how fall or spring might represent something and I certainly didn't consider how much connection there is between seasons and biblical events or greek myths. So many movies I have previously seen and books I have previously read flashed before my eyes as my brain made connections of why certain things happened in certain months. Usually, the time of year is something I disregard because I never thought about how significant it actually is to the story.

The first thing I thought of while getting deeper into this chapter is how much the movie 500 Days of Summer now made sense. Throughout this movie, a young man named Tom Hansen falls in love with a young woman named Summer Finn. Their story/relationship happens over the course of 500 days, but Summer Finn clearly represents the season, summer. Her character is the stereotypical beautiful, fun, enchanting woman. Now, in any other movie, this personality type probably wouldn’t mean really anything, but her name is Summer. It can’t be any more obvious that this is a direct tie to the desired season. Like the season, though, the man and woman's relationship comes to an end, unlike what you assume would happen in a love story. Since she’s a representation of summer, the season of youth and naiveness, of course it comes to an end, considering those characteristics in a person don’t last forever. BUT WAIT. THERE’S MORE. As if that weren’t enough seasonal representation, at the very end of the movie, Tom meets a new woman whose name happens to be Autumn! Autumn, the season, represents youth fading away, growing up, and owning up to the life you've been given by facing the punishments or rewards you deserve. What’s more, Tom and Autumn meet at a job interview which is clearly an advancement in one’s life and a step toward maturing and growing as a person. The representation of seasons is so heavy in this movie and, if I would have known how obvious that was, I could probably have figured out how the movie would play out in the end!

Along with 500 Days of Summer, I was also reminded of A Christmas Carol while reading this chapter. Throughout my life, I always wondered why Dickens made Scrooge hate Christmas as opposed to any other holiday of the year. I realize now that having him hate a different holiday would make sense to no one because of how people associate anger and hatred with winter. For some reason, those pieces never clicked in my head and until reading this chapter, I was always pestered by not knowing why he behaved the way he did. Imagine if Scrooge were to hate a different holiday, such as Easter. Questions from everyone would arise on why Easter is a holiday he would hate since spring is such a time of color, freshness, and youth. However, no one really questions why Scrooge hates Christmas since it’s in such a bitter time of the year.

This chapter opened up so much of my mind as to why certain things happen in certain times of the year. I feel like I will never watch another movie or read another book without pondering why it was set in that season or if there’s any seasonal correlation to someone’s name. Although I have a different filter on seasons now, I’m very grateful for this newfound information and I will forever be searching for the underlying meaning of things!

Reference to seasons in literature

What does communion actually mean? By: Lydia Petree

Going into chapter 2, the chapter about communion, I was not so thrilled considering the only time hearing the word “communion” was in church. Although, this chapter was not only expressing the other ways it can be used, but that it’s actually rarely used as a holy act in literature. Communion can be seen as many things, such as people eating together, sharing something, or even sharing themselves with another person most commonly in order to establish a peace.

While reading this chapter, a few things triggered memories of movies and books that I have previously come across, like The Great Gatsby. In this book, Nick goes over to his cousin Daisy’s house where a dinner is taking place in order to make Nick feel welcome to his new home in Long Island. Along with Daisy, Tom, her husband, and Daisy’s friend, Jordan, are there. As this part of the book continues, personal information is shared along with gossip about other people. The dinner showed a growing comfortability with all of them together, therefore forming a sense of community. The dinner is interrupted by Tom’s mistress calling the house. Everyone falls silent due to the fact that everyone, including Daisy, knew who was calling. Tom rudely gets up to address the situation but there is no denying that an unwelcome guest has now attended this once pleasant dinner gathering. This dinner clearly had nothing to do with the food itself. It’s about the idea that food brings people together, but on the other hand can also ruin a communal gathering. Although food is seen as a symbol of peace, it can just as easily represent the dysfunction in a family or couple, such as Daisy and Tom. This moment in the book was always a moment I remembered but I couldn’t figure out why. Now I know it’s because it uses two of the types of communion in just one scene. The unwelcome guest was the thing I enjoyed more than the community the dinner brought because it displayed an immediate change in emotion.

Another example I recalled while reading was the major dinner scene in the movie Dinner for Schmucks. At the end of the movie, a huge dinner is held for co-workers and people of their choosing to make fun of throughout the dinner. The main character, Tim, only goes to the dinner to impress his boss in order to get the promotion that is promised to him if he attends. This element of trying to get on the good side of employers is really shown here because regardless of Tim being a non-hurtful man, he needed the approval of his co-workers. Also, this scene pulls at our heart strings a little bit extra because dinner commonly represents a safe place for people to come together, but this dinner is purely to make fun of all of the “schmucks” attending. This feels unnatural and uncomfortable to people due to what communion typically stands for.

This chapter truly taught me much more than I thought I would learn from just the use of the simple word “communion”. I know now that it doesn’t just have one meaning. It can mean and symbolize so many different things that I never even considered or thought my brain would be able to comprehend. I guess that’s all part of reading literature like a professor, though!

Reference to psychological meaning behind dinner

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