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Post by betsyrahe on Mar 21, 2014 19:42:12 GMT
The guidelines for the mini lesson are:
Your group should be prepared to deliver a mini-lesson on your assigned topic related to Heart of Darkness. Your discussion should include a walkthrough of several passages that deal with your topic and how these passages work to create meaning and effect in the book as a whole. Don’t just point to passages; describe specifically how they work in the context of Conrad’s greater purpose. If you are having trouble getting started, try filling in the blanks of the following sentence:
Conrad uses (insert comment about your topic here) in order to help reinforce his idea that (insert your understanding of Conrad’s overall purpose here).
From there, any discussion of text should focus on how it develops and refines the idea in your completed sentence. Aim for about ten minutes of presentation time.
So let's get the ball rolling on discussing women in Heart of Darkness and what that provides/illistrates for Conrad's main idea. If you guys think it would be easier to start like a google doc - help with the mini lesson- I'm all for that.
Enjoy your break!
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Post by betsyrahe on Mar 26, 2014 4:25:33 GMT
Mentions of women in the novel:
-The Aunt(pg 8 and 12, 71) "I tried the women. I, Charlie Marloq, set the women to work-to get a job!"
-The Young and old knitting Women (p 10-11) possibly The Fates
-The girl (pg 48) "Oh she is out of it-completely. They the women I mean-are out of it-should be out of it...
-The "gorgeous apparition of a woman" (p 60-61 and 67) "She was savage and superb...
-The portrait of a woman who I believe is Kurtz's wife (72-end)
I might have missed a couple but those were the prominent mentions of Woman throughout the novel. It's easy and obvious to say the novella is sexist but I think there's alot to explore-especially when it comes to black woman verses white. His conversation with Kurtz's wife was very interesting and I noticed how Marlow admired her in some way the way he look upon the blacks but is more connected to her. The way he describes the black woman is like he's observing a painting-he's so fascinated with everything. The Fates is also a very interesting symbol in the book that stands out as different than the other mentions of woman.
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Post by emilybrinkmann on Mar 26, 2014 17:01:40 GMT
So.... I do not understand very much of the book. I was tempted to skim through it during break and just get it done but it did not take long to realize that was not going to work. So, while reading HOD my first though was that Conrad is a sexist pig. He brought in the Aunt very early on in the book and I thought, OK well she is just old. I found myself making these general excuses through out the book for the different female characters. Overall I think the book is more trying to bring up stereotypes that question the reader and shed light on the issue. I am about half way done with the book but I am very intrigued with what is to come of the women and wether I still believe it is just innocences and ignorance or if Conrad is a pig.
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Post by allegra on Mar 28, 2014 23:09:39 GMT
As far as women go, the book seems to focus on men for the majority. Rich men in suits and who absolutely have no time to waste and blah blah blah. It's something I've (unfortunately) come to expect out of "discovery/ adventure" books like this. Everyone here has seen Atlantis, I'm assuming. Just like in that movie there are not a whole lot of females and the ones that do a lot of work act like men in order to get respect. Same idea here. It feels as though the entire scenery of the novel is dictated by men (haha penis joke there) and it's bugging me out. I'm almost done and will post back later, but for now it's something that's irritating me a little.
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Post by cassiecumberland on Mar 29, 2014 2:39:50 GMT
I wouldn't go as far to say that the men in Conrad's novel hate women or are down-to-the-core sexist, but I think that during this time period, men just believed things about women that their ancestors taught them. Their ancestors taught them many tenets of sexism-that women just weren't capable of the same things men were, but there are encounters in the short story where women have actual proven merit (aunt winning the job, etc). Although the men seem apathetic and ungrateful, I blame the time period and society. These men truly are questioning the roles of people in society-especially women!
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Post by mattagritelley on Mar 31, 2014 1:32:40 GMT
Betsy, I think you listed all of the same references that I also found.
Conrad's first portrayal of women in Heart of Darkness is the two women knitting at the Doctor's office in Brussels. In addition to initially describing the two by their physical build ("one fat and the other slim" (7)), Conrad associates the two women to the idea of hopelessness, as they are "guarding the door of darkness" (8). This initial portrayal sets the tone for what is to come in terms of Conrad's misogyny and the way he chooses to include women in his story.
Conrad next introduces Marlow's aunt, a naive lady who seems to live in her own world, as Conrad claims all women do. This gross generalization seems unnecessary to the work as a whole and clearly serves a misogynistic purpose.
Conrad then references Kurtz's painting, which is comprised of a young blindfolded girl. "The background was sombre-- almost black. The movement of the woman was stately, and the effect of the torchlight on the face was sinister" (21). This painting alienates the woman and eliminates many elements of her control.
The most interesting part of this story pertaining to women has to do with the contrast between Kurtz's African mistress and his fiancee back at home. Conrad describes his African mistress as "Savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent" (54). Later, he describes Kurtz's fiancee: "I noticed she was not young-- I mean not girlish. She had a mature capacity for fidelity, for belief, for suffering" (66). While both of these quotes attempt to relay complimenting descriptions, they also contain highly derogatory undertones. Furthermore, the contrasting nature of the two statements sheds light on racism, in addition to misogyny. The first quote calls the African mistress savage and wild eyed, both of which are racist jabs at her ethnicity. However, he also calls her superb and magnificent, likely in a backhanded effort to convey beauty in something that he believes contains none. Conrad describes Kurtz's fiancee as someone containing a "mature capacity," thus implying some superiority due to her elegance (at least over the African mistress). At the same time, however, this mature capacity involves being able to remain loyal and enduring, both of which are subjugating and degrading.
While it seems slightly unclear as to why Conrad includes these misogynistic remarks, I am inclined to believe that the clear distinction between Men and Women serves to perpetuate the concurrent contrast between Africa and Europe, or in other words, one idea being inferior to the other.
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Post by fionabyrne on Mar 31, 2014 6:11:42 GMT
I only have one thing to add that hasn't been mentioned which is that I think it would be worth it to spend some time looking at the way in which the narrator describes people's physical appearances. One aspect is how he describes their dress and another is how he describes physical features. Especially notable is the way he described the woman in kurtz's painting. It seems to me that he qualifies people and their worth by how they look, which is especially significant when applied to women specifically.
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Post by keelycorrigan on Mar 31, 2014 19:26:35 GMT
I agree with what has been said above but I think it is critical to remember that Conrad writes of women as means to an end: a means to a job, to sex, to a meaningful and metaphorically resonant ending. I think that is really important to how we discuss this topic.
Go group 4!
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Post by keelycorrigan on Apr 1, 2014 22:29:47 GMT
Hey group! Do we have a game plan as to how we are going to present this. PowerPoint? Discussion? We need to nail that down.
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Post by cassiecumberland on Apr 2, 2014 2:01:55 GMT
Yeah. How is this going down?
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