Bastante – English III HEART OF DARKNESS PARTS I AND II

PART I (CONT’D) Marlow arrives at the station and meets the Chief Accountant, a man noticed for his good grooming. The Chief Accountant tells Marlow that he will soon meet Mr. Kurtz, a station head who is known for bringing in a lot of ivory Though the Chief Accountant appears impressive due to his outer appearance, we learn that he is filled with hate and powerlessness when he comments “when one has got to make correct entries, one comes to hate these savages – hate them to death.”

PART I (CONT’D) Marlow joins a fifteen-day caravan through the jungle to Central Station The only other white man falls ill and is deserted, reemphasizing the absurdity efficiency of the colonial effort When he reaches the station, Marlow gets news that the General Manager hired an inexperienced pilot for a steamship in efforts to try to reach Kurtz and the ship has sunk Marlow has suspicions that the General Manager wanted the ship to sink… (this guess foreshadows the General Manager’s negative feelings about Kurtz) The General Manager is unremarkable in intelligence, leadership, and unskilled at maintaining order, but is resistant to tropical diseases Why was the General Manager in such a rush to reach Kurtz? He is sick

PART I (CONT’D) Marlow begins work on the damaged steamship, where he finds that the various Company agents, or employees, do not work – rather, they stroll about aimlessly talking of ivory and wealth This is upsetting to Marlow since he values work above all else and describes this place as “unreal” – work providing a reality one can cling to Marlow learns that the General Manager’s concern for Kurtz’s well-being is fake – he overhears him saying that he wants to “take advantage of this unfortunate accident” Marlow begins to see Kurtz as the antidote to the evils and hollowness of civilization because he seems to be a man profoundly dedicated to ethics and morality Who does everyone think is the General Manager’s spy? The Brickmaker

PART I (CONT’D) Marlow refers to the Brickmaker as a “papier-mache Mephistopheles,” or a hollow devil because he and the General Manager see Kurtz as a threat to their dreams of advancement Marlow pretends to have as much influence in Europe as the Brickmaker thinks he has in order to get him to speed up the repair of the steamship By doing the thing he hates most in the world – lying – Marlow shows a sudden sense of allegiance to the moral Kurtz (is he getting a little crush on him?) What is foreshadowed later in the novel from Marlow’s lie? The lie Marlow tells to Kurtz’s intended

PART I (CONT’D) Marlow, while working on the steamship – “I don’t like work…but I like what is in the work – the chance to find yourself. Your own reality.” He uses work as a coping mechanism to escape his discomfort with the lack of truth in the world When weeks pass and the rivets don’t arrive, but instead we are introduced to the Eldorado Exploring Expedition, a group of pilgrims led by the General Manager’s uncle They are all greedy, cowardly, and without any sort of foresight or understanding of work Why was the expedition named Eldorado? It is named after a mythical city made of gold, representative of the pilgrims’ hollowness and hunger for greed

PART II After some undisclosed amount of time passes, Marlow overhears the General Manager talking with his uncle about Kurtz – they are annoyed that he has so much influence on the Company