So, hello and welcome to this NPTEL course
entitled Twentieth Century Fiction. We were
looking at Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.
We had a few lectures on this already. So,
we will just dive into the section that we
are aiming to cover today in this lecture.
Now, if you remember when I stopped in the
previous lecture I mentioned a particular
term which I thought I would pick on and just
you know expand on in subsequent lectures
and that term was delay decoding. So, we talked
about how delayed decoding is a very important
narrative technique used by Conrad.
So, what is delayed decoding? So, delayed
decoding is that the instrument of narration
through which the senses appear first, the
senses are foregrounded and the object comes
much later. The object which creates the senses,
object which creates impressions, the object
comes much later, the object is decoded much
later and hence the whole idea of delayed
decoding.
So, for instance there is a section in Heart
of Darkness which we will see and spend some
time on where Conrad Marlow who is traveling
down Congo, he feels himself completely bombarded
by certain things. You know it is pricking
on the skin and it’s attacking him and he
does not quite know what the things up, but
he gets the impression, the senses, the sense
of fear, the sense of you know the tactile
sense of being touched with something alien
that appears over and over again and that
is foregrounded with very dense descriptions.
And, only much later we find out that the
objects which are actually causing that are
arrows right, arrows that you know are being
shot at Marlow and his streamer.
So, the object comes much later, it is decoded
much later and the impressions and the senses
they come much before much earlier and only
through by navigating through the senses do
we reach the object eventually. So, the whole
idea of delayed decoding on Conrad’s narrative
style is very important and it is very important
style because it talks about it describes
or it foregrounds the density of objects,
the density of sensory experience, the opacity
or rather the translucence of impressions.
So, what I mean by translucence is the liminal
category between transparent and opaque. It
is something that we know as well as do not
know. So, you know this degree of unknowability
about experience that Conrad excels in terms
of you know incorporating that into his narrative
style and we see how this becomes very quickly
political and racial in quality as well because
you know at the end of the day what is happening
here is the white man is going to a non-white
space where everything is alien to him and
the whole idea of invading and terrorizing
the non-white space comes with a fear and
anxiety of not knowing what is around you
all the time.
So, you know the whole idea of going to a
space of alterity or a different space is
important because the difference is foregrounded,
the difference is dramatized with the whole
idea of delayed decoding right. We do not
quite know what the objects are we do not
quite know how things shape up around us because
this is a politically and racially and culturally
different space. And, so, the whole idea of
being politically and culturally and materially
other informs the whole existential awareness
of otherness right and that is part of the
unknowability which informs delayed decoding
ok.
So, the section that is on your screen at
the moment this is where Marlow is sailing
on to Congo on the streamer and then this
is what he says and this should be on your
screen. Every day the coast looked the same,
as though we had not moved; but we passed
various places – trading places – with
names such as Gran’ Bassam, Little Popo;
names that seemed to belong to some sordid
farce acted in front of a sinister back-cloth
right.
So, the passing of different petty places
little petty ports but it seems Marlow that
they are not moving at all, there is a degree
of stillness and immobility about the whole
experience in a boat, it does not seem to
move at all, but you are passing on different
places that with very strange names. And,
we take a look at the politics of naming Gran
Bassam and Little Popo these obviously, are
ad hoc names given by European companies and
sometimes the logic the rationale behind these
names might be ludicrous.
So, you know the whole idea, the whole farcity
of naming those places with European names
is something which Marlow is experience very
early on in his encounter with imperialism.
The whole politics of naming places, the whole
politics of giving names to places which otherwise
are unknown and they are like I said the rationale
behind naming those places might be ludicrous
that is at certain points might be a product
grown in that particular place, it might be
a company name of a company official who acts
in that particular place. These are the rationales
that inform namings of such places which are
often ridiculous in quality ok.
The idleness of the passenger, my isolation
amongst all these men with whom I had no point
of contact, seemed to keep me away from the
truth of things. So, again the whole idea
of being away from the truth of things is
important because that is what I mean when
I mention the term the density of experience,
the density of experientiality right you know
every experience in Conrad is very dense in
quality and that is reflected in the density
of descriptions. So, if you know by now you
should be knowing that Heart of Darkness is
very dense novel to read.
So, if you read the novels more of a novella
that a novel it is barely 90 pages long, but
it will take you a lot of time to read it
because it is not a novel that you can quickly
consume you know it is not that kind of a
novel. It is a novel which will test your
patience, is novel which will test your reading
ability because of the density of descriptions;
it is very dense ontologically very dense,
you know narratively it is very dense etcetera.
So, the whole idea of being away from the
truth of things that Marlow is experiencing,
and that gets extended or spilled over even
to the readerly experience. When reading Heart
of Darkness, we do not quite know what is
happening all the time. So, we too like Marlow
we are away from the truth of things. So,
although this is a retrospective narration
Marlow obviously, knows the truth now, but
the way he is re-narrating it you know narration
of Heart of Darkness is also an act of re-experiencing.
So, he is giving you the flavor or the first
an experience in that sense the experience
that he first had when he went to Congo, he
is not telling you what it is now exactly
because; obviously, he knows the things now
because he has been through it. But, he is
making us the readers going through the same
experience, the same experience pattern that
he went through as well ok. So, the whole
idea of being away from the truth of things
is important over here. So, even as a narrator,
even as a reader you are experiencing the
whole factor being away from the truth of
things ok.
Within a toil of a mournful and senseless
delusion; delusion about meaning of things,
delusion about the whole you know idea of
imperialism etcetera. The voice of the surf
heard now and then was a positive pleasure,
like the speech of a brother. It is natural
that had its reason that had a meaning. Now
and then the boat from the shore gave one
a momentary contact with reality. So, the
whole idea of reality and meaningfulness become
a luxury to Marlow because you know they stranded
middle of nowhere, you know is they almost
feel as they are not moving at all in the
middle of nowhere, in its endless fluidity
of the sea.
So, the surf the surf heard every now and
then, you know when the waves are breaking
the surf heard is generated every now and
then the visibility of the surf heard is a
you know nourishing break is something which
gives some meaning. And, every time a boat
comes in from the shore gives you a momentary
contact with reality which we otherwise you
know do not have in the middle of this vast
ocean that Marlow was stranded in a streamer
ok.
So, and then he goes on to say, For a time
I would feel I belonged still to a world of
straightforward facts; but the feeling would
not last long. So, this whole idea of moving
away from straightforward facts is important
and that is actually commentary on the whole
novel so to say because this is a novel which
does not really deal with straightforward
facts anymore right because you know it is
a departure from facts, it is a departure
from reality, palpable reality, tangible reality,
it’s you know it is an entrance into a world
of meanings where you know meanings are always
produced and reproduced and de-produced right.
So, it is about de-production of meanings
to a large extent right.
So, it is a long way from the straightforward
facts and then this whole departure from straightforward
facts is important because what that tells
us is that straightforward facts is an overt
a cultural constructs to a large extent. Those
come from a certain cultural setting, those
come from a certain meaning, landscape meaningful
landscapes, when you take away the landscape
and take away the materiality or the meaningful
landscape when you are in the middle of nowhere
those facts do not matter at all, those facts
cease to have any meaning whatsoever.
So, in a nutshell what Marlow tells us and
what we get the sense of a get over here is
the very interesting entanglement between
material reality and experientiality. The
way you experience things depends on a material
reality around you. So, the reality around
you is something that is familiar to you,
something that you can navigate with then
the whole idea of meaning production and meaning
consumption becomes easier and quicker and
more linear in quality.
However, if the material reality around you
changes that for instance it does over here
in Marlow in the case of Marlow where he is
in the middle of nowhere when all he says
sees around is an endless fluidity of the
sea. Then obviously, your whole sense of meaning
your whole grasp of meaning changes as well
quite dramatically, then you do not quite
know how to deal with what is around you all
the time.
So, something would turn up to scare it away.
Once, I remember, we came upon a man-of-war
anchored off the coast. So, this is a very
important section this reason why I am spending
some time with it today.
A man-of-war is a shooting vessel. You know
it is one of those vessels it is like an artillery
machine, it is a gun machine it is a big gun
which was used presumably by the French at
some point of time when they tried to attack
this particular landscape. It appears the
French had one of their wars going on thereabouts.
Her ensign dropped limp like a rag; the muzzles
of the long six-inch guns stuck out all over
the low hull; the greasy, slimy swell swung
upon her swung upon her lazily and let her
down, swaying her thin masts. So, this is
a description of a machine but also look at
the way in which how the machine is humanized
as a female figure.
So, the man-of-war is basically a machine
gun. It was a French machine gun which was
left abandoned supposedly because the French
had some war in that region and then moved
on and for some reason that particular ammunition
got left behind. It was you know abandoned
as an abandoned ammunition, but then the way
it’s described over here as almost humanized
right and this is interesting because what
is actually telling us is that this is a situation
this is a cultural climate where everything
is commodified everything becomes the machine.
So, conversely every machine becomes humanized
as well right. So, this whole borderline between
what is human and what is non-human, what
is a machine, what is an organic reality,
the borderlines blur away very quickly because
we find the French you know machine gun over
here, the man-of-war over here is almost an
epathetic gaze Marlow has on it right. It
is almost like Marlow feels for its abandoned
condition Marlow feels for its alienation
the fact that it does not have any meaning
anymore and that seems to have some kind of
resonance with the way he is experiencing
reality as well as an outsider as an Englishman
who is in the middle of nowhere now.
So, he feels abandoned as well, he feels alienated
as well, he feels exhausted of meaning as
well just like the French ammunition over
here, the abandoned ammunition over here.
So, that man machine empathy over here is
very interesting it is something that Heart
of Darkness does touch upon every now and
then ok. And, then see how this French ammunition
just abandoned would still I mean obviously,
it is dysfunctional, but every now and then
it will pop up and fire something you know
because no one bothered to stop it, no one
bothered to terminate it really.
So, it is an abandoned machine gun which will
pop up and give empty fires every now and
then and this is a description that is coming
up for you and this should be on your screen.
In the empty immensity of earth, sky, and
water, there she was, incomprehensible firing
into a continent. So, you know it just continued
to fire you know emptily, endlessly, meaninglessly,
and purposelessly. So, you know the whole
purposelessness of the firing mechanism over
here becomes very symbolic signifier of the
purposelessness of imperialism to a large
extent right.
Pop, would one go would go one of the six-inch
guns; a small flame would dart and vanish,
a little white smoke would disappear, a tiny
projectile would give a feeble screech – and
nothing happened. So, again this particular
sentence is very important; pop would go one
of the six-inch guns. So, again one of the
guns would go pop out every now and then,
you know a small flame would dart and vanish.
So, you know it just continued to fire just
continued to do little function in a very
dysfunctional way and it is something very
Sisyphean about this whole exercise something
completely purposeless about this whole exercise
meaningless about this whole exercise, why
is the obvious question, why the necessity
to fire. A little white smoke would disappear,
a tiny projectile would give a feeble screech
– and nothing happened you know this last
bit is important over here nothing happened
following sentence nothing could happen right.
So, the sense of nothingness is important.
So, what is produced out of this image, what
is produced out of this operation was nothingness
right. So, the whole idea the whole French
man of arm over here, the whole French machine
gun the abandoned ammunition over here it
becomes a symbol of the production of nothingness
right. Well quite literally in quite symbolically
it becomes a production of nothingness, an
endless production and reproduction of nothingness.
And, that in a way according to Marlow sums
up imperialism that you know in the end it
is actually about nothingness, it is about
man’s greed, is about man’s exploitation,
it is about all the vices that man is capable
of, but then at the end it is about nothingness,
it is about something very nihilistic something
very negative and sort of consuming cannibalistic
about imperialism that Marlow would describe.
But, this first image the first signifier
of nothingness, the first signifier of purposelessness,
the first symbol of purposelessness in Heart
of Darkness is important for us to understand
that is why we spend some time over here.
You know the long machine guns which are there
in the French ammunition which was abandoned,
it had some meaning at some point of time
in history, but now time has moved on, had
left it behind with no sense of purpose. And,
all it does every now and then it is pop up
little guns, pop up little fires and it keeps
firing into the continent, it does not kill
anything, it does not serve any purpose but
just keeps firing over and over again ad infinitum.
And, this ad infinitum quality is precise
what makes it is so nihilistic in quality,
it makes it so negative in quality right.
So, nothing happened nothing could happen.
It is almost like a Beckettian ring about
it. So those of you who have read Samuel Beckett’s
Waiting for Godot would know this is a phrase
which keeps coming up nothing happened or
nothing happens twice nothing happens over
and over again. So, what actually means is
nothingness is produced. So, you know the
whole idea of happening is reduced to a nothingness.
So, nothingness is happening all the time.
And, then Marlow goes on to say there is a
touch of insanity in the proceeding, a sense
of lugubrious drollery in the sight ok. Look
at the way Conrad Marlow and Conrad they are
very dense in the descriptions there is a
density in the words there is a degree of
difficulty in description which is important
for us to recognize and part of the difficulty
is connected to another term which I will
spend some time with today. It is related
to delayed decoding, but it is also a little
different and that is a term called defamiliarization.
Now, what is defamiliarization? Defamiliarization
is a term is a technique through which the
world that is familiar to you is dramatically
defamiliarized right. So, the way it is described,
the way it appears, the way it is experienced
it generates a sense of alienation, a sense
of cognitive alienation. As a result of which
the familiar world the familiar furniture
of meanings around you that changes to an
extent that it becomes completely different
and alienated like. For instance, that the
furniture around you it could be you know
literally a furniture, it could be a piece
of chair, it could be a wooden desk, but it
could also be more symbolic things.
Now, the way it is described the way it is
experienced by the subject it generates a
sense of alienation, it generates a sense
of meaninglessness, it generates a sense of
dissonance cognitive dissonance and that dissonance
is important and that is what de-familiarization
is all about right, it is a world which is
defamiliarized before you. So, we have a machine
gun over here which should be a very familiar
object to someone like Marlow who has traveled
so far so much so extensively. But, the way
the machine gun appears, the way the ammunition
appears over here you know it is so defamiliarizing,
it is about purposelessness, is about meaninglessness,
it is about alienation. So, it becomes the
production of nothingness and likewise and
by extension that becomes a production of
defamiliarization and there is a dual category
almost over here, these are interconnected
categories ok.
So, there is a touch of insanity in the proceeding
insanity madness, there is a degree of nothingness,
madness, irrationality and you know this is
a very important point because imperialism
took pride in the fact that this is about
the European man’s rational enterprise,
this is about the expansionist enterprise
of enlightenment, rationalism etcetera, but
Marlow is taking a look at the dark underbelly
of imperialism. He is taking too close a look
to know that this is you know rational, this
is actually highly irrational.
And, the irrationality of Heart of Darkness,
irrationality of imperialism is something
which Heart of Darkness keeps foregrounding
over and over again. And, that is something
which is described which is reflected in the
description, the lugubrious drollery in a
sight. So, it is drollery, the drudgery, the
laborious quality of the whole enterprise
and it just pops up again and then it you
know keeps firing and then goes back to sleep
and then wakes up and fires again into an
empty, dead, dark continent, which does not
respond to the fire at all.
And, this is what I meant by the whole idea
of Sisyphean quality. It is like a purposeless
quality. Sisyphean of course, is reference
to the myth of Sisyphus who was consigned
to keep pushing up a stone as most of you
would know keep pushing up a stone on top
of a hill and the moment the stone would reach
at the top of the hill it would roll down
and this is how Sisyphus was doomed to keep
pushing it forever right. So, it becomes a
symbol of you know existential purposelessness
and this is what we have over here as well
ok.
It was not dissipated by somebody on board
assuring me earnestly there was a camp of
natives, he called them enemies hidden out
of sight somewhere. So, the whole point is
you know it is still there because presumably
there are some enemies somewhere, but no one
quite can see them there are invisible enemies
and invisibility is part of the meaninglessness,
you know the whole pointlessness of places
which you know supposedly are controlled without
any inhabitants becomes very clear to Marlow.
And, then he goes on to say – We called
at some more places with farcical names. You
know the word farce is appears twice already
in a very closed space of time and when a
writer like Conrad who is so diligent, who
is so careful with language, he is repeating
a particular term repeating a particular word
a particular adjective we need to pay some
attention to it. Now, what is farcical, what
is the quality of a farce? So, the relationship
in farce and tragedy is important because
tragedy has some grandeur to it, tragedy has
some depth to it, tragedy has some a degree
of you know profundity to it.
Farce is basically exhausted tragedy, farce
is liquidated tragedy; tragedy which has been
liquidated of profundity which has been exhausted
of it and there is a subtly comic quality
about farce. There is a dark comic quality
about farce which can be morbid humor, which
can be gallows humor, which is definitely
grotesque humor and sometimes you know quite
morbid in that sense as well, but definitely
dark humor right. So, farce is a combination
of tragedy and shallow comedy right, depthless
comedy and he combined these two categories
together and it produced farce. So, it is
a very complex cognitive category farce.
So, when Marlow says that you know there are
places with farcical names what he is actually
telling us is he stopped seeing through the
complete irrationality of imperialism where
it is not really a tragic enterprise, it is
a tragic it was a darkly comic enterprise
because it is so irrational in quality, it
is so meaningless in quality ok. So, we called
it some more places with farcical names where
the merry dance of death and trade goes on.
I mean look at the lovely phrase dance of
death; the merry dance of death and trade
goes on.
So, the dance macabre quality about these
things because this all destruction happening
over here, the people getting killed, the
people getting exploited, there are lands
getting ravished because of you know industrialization
or imperialism. So, the dance of death which
is again there is a degree of carnivalesque
about it. So, it is like almost like destruction
which is so absolutely destructive, that it
is almost conic in quality, there is no there
is nothing you can salvage out of it right.
So that destruction that death that goes hand
in hand with trade. So, the quality of trade
in imperialism it has a carnivalesque quality
to it, it has a grotesque quality to it, it
is so greedy that is grotesque in quality
right. So, there is a cannibalistic grotesque
quality about imperial trade which Marlow
was emphasizing over here and Conrad of course,
he is trying to project that as an image of
imperialism there is a grotesque carnivalesque
cannibalistic quality about trade imperial
trade because it is never disconnected with
death, it is never distanced from death. It
is always about death; it is always about
destructions about always about merry dance
of death, the dance macabre as technically
we would call it ok.
So, the merry dance of death and trade goes
on and is still an earthly atmosphere as of
an overheated catacomb. So, the whole idea
of the tomb quality, the sepulcher quality
is important over here. It is always about
deadness, it is something sepulchral, something
coffin-like in quality and a coffin-like quality
it dramatizes the image of deadness, the intensity
of deadness over here.
All along the formless coast bordered by dangerous
surf, as if Nature herself had tried to ward
off intruders; in and out of rivers, streams
of death in life, whose banks were rotting
into mud, whose waters, thickened into slime,
invaded the contorted mangroves that seem
to writhe at us in the extremity of an impotent
despair. So, you know this particular passage
again very dense, very difficult and full
of very difficult words writhe, thickened
with slime, rotting into mud, contorted mangroves.
So, we find that what Marlow is trying to
describe is a density of death over here.
And, it all ends with a very important phrase
impotent despair. Now, what is impotent? Something
which does not have any you know purpose,
something which is just completely you know
powerless in quality right. Impotent despair
is a despair that you can do nothing about
right; it is a despair that is completely
exhausting in quality. There is no nothing
to be salvaged from the despair, there is
no action to be generated from that despair.
And, that is important thing over here and
that is again connected to the whole idea
the Sisyphean quality in Heart of Darkness
about Marlow’s experience in Heart of Darkness
as someone who knows it, who sees it all,
who sees imperialism as a dark destructive
dangerous and greedy exploitive thing, but
nothing can be done about it right. So, impotent
despair becomes an absolute annihilation of
agency so to say; is a complete you know decline
and annihilation of agency, systematic annihilation
of agency, the agency goes away from the whole
idea of imperialism. So, once you are inside
as an imperialist there is nothing you can
do to salvage or redeem any pride, any glory,
any heroism at all.
Nowhere did we stop long enough to get a particularized
impression, but the general sense of vague
and oppressive wonder grew upon me. Again,
a very important phrase oppressive wonder,
so, the whole idea of bewilderment, the whole
idea of astonishment over here is not one
of romanticized astonishment not one of romanticized
you know wonder or fascination, but it is
something very oppressive about it, something
very hard and difficult and oppressive about
this whole exercise over here and at the same
time it is very fake.
So, do not quite know what is oppressing him
and do not quite know what is bothering and
torturing you, but at the same time that oppressive
wonder grows in you organically. It sort of
eats you up and this is what I mean when I
say this is cannibalistic quality of imperialism.
It eats you up as an activity as an existential
activity. It was like a weary pilgrimage amongst
hints of nightmares amongst hints for nightmares.
So, you know it becomes a grotesque pilgrimage;
it becomes a grotesque parody of the romantic
quest for meaning, a romantic quest for the
holy grail, for any kind of redemptive quality.
Because the more you travel in this particular
experience more exhausted you get out of redemption.
The more you realize there is it is completely
impossible it is irredeemable to a large extent
and that irredeemable quality grows upon you
as you go as you travel further right. So,
that becomes important part of experiencing
it all you know the whole idea of imperialism
ok.
So, and then we have another character who
is introduced over here, to Marlow a seaman
a captain of a particular streamer who was
a Swedish person and this is Marlow’s experience
with that person. Her captain was a Swede
and knowing me for a seaman invited me on
the bridge. He was a young man, lean, fair
and morose; so again, the morose depressed
the depressed quality is important.
It is almost something melancholic about a
whole experience over here and I use the word
melancholic in a Freudian sense because melancholia
is a special kind of sadness. Some of you
would know that when Freud talks about melancholia
and mourning together melancholia is that
sadness which is generated or accompanied
with a sense of the loss of the ego. You lose
your sense of self esteem is that sadness
which takes away your self esteem, it takes
away an irredeemable quality that you have
as an ego as a person as a subject.
So, melancholia is essentially about the exhausting
away of the subject’s worth or the subject’s
value to itself. So, you know it is a production
of valuelessness, there is a production of
worthlessness. So, melancholia is about the
production of worthlessness which is accompanied
by sadness. So, sadness and worthlessness
put together is what melancholia is in a Freudian
the classical Freudian sense and we have that
sense of melancholia very palpably present
here as well in Heart of Darkness.
Young man lean, fair and morose with lanky
hair and shuffling gait – so, something
very unhealthy, something very decadent, something
very unhygienic about this particular person,
about all the people in Heart of Darkness,
something very sepulchral or macabre or death
like about them.
As we left the miserable little wharf, he
tossed his head contemptuously at the shore.
Been living there? He asked, I said, Yes.
Fine lot these government chaps – are they
not? He went on, speaking English with great
precision and considerable bitterness. It
is funny what some people will do for a few
francs a month. I wonder what becomes of that
kind when it goes upcountry. I said to him
I expected to see that soon. So-o-o, he exclaimed.
He shuffled athwart, keeping one eye ahead
vigilantly. Do not be too sure, he continued.
The other day I took up a man who hanged himself
on the road. He was a Swede too.
Hanged himself! Why, in God’s name? I cried.
He kept on looking out watchfully. Who knows?
The sun too much for him, or the country perhaps.
Now, I stop at this point today, but you know
I spend some time with this passage. So, we
have two white men you know comparing the
horror stories over here. So, we have this
Swedish person telling Marlow that if you
go further up this country, if you go further
up this Heart of Darkness quote unquote Heart
of Darkness, you find that you go more insane
that you do things you will experience things,
believe in things which are completely quote
unquote irrational and that can make you mad,
that can drive you to death and we have an
example of someone who actually you know hung
himself you know so, someone who killed himself
presumably out of morbid despair.
Now, this is the reason why Heart of Darkness
is such a topical novel today because we find
that this kind of a wide experience of despair,
meaninglessness, you know delusion or melancholia
in the sense of worthlessness that you get
out of sadness; it is something which you
get a lot in Iraq war novels. So, for instance
there is a large literature emerging out of
the American Iraq war, so, if you look at
the Iraq war novels the people who went the
American soldiers who went to Iraq when they
came back as very famous novel called the
Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers I think.
If you read that novel it is about the PTSD
veteran who came comes back from the Iraq
war, and he does not quite know how to tell
the story, he does not quite know how to situate
his own subject apropos the horrors he has
experienced. And, Heart of Darkness in that
sense is one of the earliest novels about
the horrors of the white man, who goes on
a greedy mission, who goes on an exploitative
mission he goes on his ravaging mission of
imperialism.
And, in the process he gets completely consumed
up. This is something cannibalistic about
the whole enterprise which eats him up existentially.
And, then we have all these white man talking
to each other very depressed, very delusional
you know almost mad some suicidal and essentially
hollowed out and this is one image that I
will stop at this lecture I will continue
in the next lectures.
But, in the sense of hollowness in Heart of
Darkness is something which is very important
and that is something which you find in many
Iraq war novels, American – Iraq war novels.
When the white man, the white veterans come
back from the Iraq war, the white soldiers
come back from the Iraq war, they carry on
they extend the sense of hollowness which
is essentially an exhausted ego. The ego gets
completely exhausted completely liquidated
completely shut down in that sense.
And, interestingly enough when T S Eliot in
one of his very famous poem called Hollow
Men which is one of the greatest works in
modernist literature, in modernist poetry
we would not do that because we did fiction,
we did novels and prose but, you know it is
worthwhile reading it. But, the point is the
point that I am trying to make is in that
particular poem the hollow men he begins with
an epitaph and the epitaph is from Heart of
Darkness which is, Mister Kurtz, he dead;
the reference to mister Kurtz from Heart of
Darkness.
So, Heart of Darkness Conrad’s Heart of
Darkness becomes the allegory of hollowness
for modernism, it becomes an archetype of
a hollowness and fiction for later modernist
works. Someone like T S Eliot to quote it,
to cite it, to refer to it as the ur-text
so to say about hollowness is a very important
thing. So, you know Heart of Darkness you
know you find all this unnamed, melancholic
characters, the melancholic white men that
talk to each other, compare the horror stories,
I mean show the scars to each other so to
say.
They are very interestingly dialogic with
some of the recent literature on Iraq some
of the new recent literature on the Middle
East written by you know people who either
traveled or fought the wars or people who
you know fictionalized it in a different kind
of frame. But, essentially about melancholy
about hollowness is about realizing that the
mission the political mission whether it is
a war against terrorism or imperialism whatever
is essentially a greedy, exploitative, cannibalistic
enterprise.
And, this awareness of cannibalism this knowledge
of cannibalism is something which literally
and existentially eats him up. As a result
the emerges hollow people who either kill
themselves, they commit suicide or get killed
existentially in a sense that they come back
permanently enervated, permanently exhausted,
permanently paranoid and permanently living
that horror in modern parlance we call them
PTSD – Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. So,
they are permanently PTSD veterans. So, this
is what I mean when I say a lot of Iraq war
literature deals with this kind of theme as
well. So, I stop at this point today. We will
continue with this on next lectures.
Thank you for your attention.
