Difficulties

While I have many difficulties in life, just functioning normally, I think it will come to no surprise that I also had a challenge analyzing some of the passages from Heart of Darkness. So without further ado, my passage that I had difficulty with was the meaning of the following quote:

     " We could not understand because we were too far and could not remember because we were travelling in the night of first ages, of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sign- and no memories"  (108).

I can understand that the passage is referencing the jungle and the prehistoric times, or the "night of first ages".It is foreign to him and his men. The part I am troubled with is more what exactly they can not understand.  I speculated that there was no one to pass down the stories and information so there is no understanding of (at least for Marlow) the history of the jungle and the way of life there.

Foreshadowin. A quote.

     "But darkness was here yesterday. Imagine the feelings of a commander of a fine--what d'ye call 'em?--trireme in the Mediterranean, ordered suddenly to the north; run overland across the Gauls in a hurry; put in charge of one of these craft the legionaries--a wonderful lot of handy men they must have been, too--used to build, apparently by the hundred, in a month or two, if we may believe what we read. Imagine him here--the very end of the world, a sea the colour of lead, a sky the colour of smoke, a kind of ship about as rigid as a concertina-- and going up this river with stores, or orders, or what you like. Sand-banks, marshes, forests, savages,--precious little to eat fit for a civilized man, nothing but Thames water to drink. No Falernian wine here, no going ashore. Here and there a military camp lost in a wilderness, like a needle in a bundle of hay--cold, fog, tempests, disease, exile, and death--death skulking in the air, in the water, in the bush. They must have been dying like flies here."


I thought this quote was a jem because it draws an obvious and almost direct parallel between ancient London and the Congo. Down to the forests and wilderness. This quote allows the reader to predict what the entire book will be about. Just as the men came to London and "suffered in an uncivilized" land, so did (I predict) Marlow during his adventure up the river.

Psychology of Exploration

 Prior to reading this book, I could not find much wrong with the exploitation of material goods in foreign colonies other than the damage exporting these resources and harvesting them did to the earth. After reading part one of this book I realized I was severely mistaken. The gruesome acts that were committed against the natives in the Congo were deeply disturbing. It made me question my knowledge of what is occutring this very moment in the "far-flung" colonies. My ignorance is something that I believe I share with many others who too are simply on the receiving end of these goods. I believe there ought to be more strict regulation on companies who wish to exploit foreign soil. I believe as a first-world country we often have a savior complex. This in and of itself is a major issue with exploration. We view ourselves as better because of the material success we have had as a country and use this as a suitable excuse to invade, in order to "help" other  countries obtain the success we have. The twisted outcome of this mentality is currently causing the suffering of many children in Haiti:

"The practice of Restavek - from a French word meaning "to stay with" - began with the noble intentions of educating children from rural villages. But over the years, the practice has become twisted. The result is that many children are now exploited rather than helped." -Leif Coorlim

One underlying question this book presented was whether our riches make us successful. Hoshchild demonstrated how Leopold's country in no way favored him as a leader and in fact many of the explorers were unhappy and troubled. I beg to argue that their psychological troubles and disturbances far outweigh the physical  and economic troubles the native population suffered prior to the arrival of Leopold. Certainly, their situation did not improve after his "exploration". Part one has clearly demonstrated the issues that can arise from exploration.