Class Notes: 2/7-2/18

During the second half of this two week period all we did was watch Apocalypse Now. This film is essentially based on Heart of Darkness, the setting for the movie is Vietnam, and the main character is on a mission to recover a renegade General. Along the way he becomes captivated by this General, although hes never met him, and that’s as far as we got in my class.

In the first week of this period we discussed a few different topics:

• Women in HOD-overall a low opinion of women, to be seen not heard kind of deal
• The fates
• Marlow’s general awkward behavior around women
• Kurtz's fiancé
• Marlow's Aunt
• The African women
• None of the women are named
• Eden and Hell
• corrupted paradise
• geography a big part of this book
• the river=snake
• heaven and hell are one in the same
• Darkness in HOD
• the primal instincts in all humans
• Africans
• never named
• Always described in terms of white-white teeth, white around the eyes, ect.
• Was Conrad racist?
• What was Conrad's real view on imperialism?
• seemed to condemn the slavery part of it
• seemed to support the industrial side
• was he pressured by his society to accept imperialism?
• Conrad's use of a frame narrative
• used a 'false' narrator that popped in everyone and a while
• never named
• this 'false' narrator begins and ends the story
• Marlow is the actual narrator
• tells his story with a few interjections from the false 'narrator'