Sound Asleep

As Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness progresses, my interest dwindles. It is not that the novel lacks quality, the problem is the way it translates into words. Take movies, for example. An action film maintains our interest as it manages to inscribe purpose into every second of the plot. There are moments where blinking may represent the absence of a bullet breaking through a human skull, where even the sound of gunpowder burning in the cannon calls for attention. But not everything may be high-tech warfare, for there must be something for romantics. If I ask you to recall one of such films, I bet the visual memory is not nearly as detailed. This is because, at least to my simple mind, there is no amusement in the picking of a flower, the waiting for a train or the entrance to a restaurant. But I would be wrong in arguing that the crushed skull represents a wider portion of human emotion than the message embedded in a rose. This same situation is staged in my reading of Conrad’s novel. The meaning is clearly there, but where’s the action?

There’s no doubt that European colonization was packed with action. Imagine how many rounds where fired, how many battles fought, how many succumbed to illness. Conrad is satisfied with the isolated effects. We stumble across a body “with a bullet-hole in the forehead” but have no access to the action that led to it (34). I am not insensible in my thirst for action. I clearly understand the message the lies inscribed in a dead body after a description of the ill treat towards black slaves, but it fails to welcome the reader into a story. When we become part of what is being said, when we understand the causes and implications, the effects mean so much more.

Pages display empty conversations and alienated descriptions. Many words go by between any two intriguing events, and when these appear, they are always a consequence of cruelty and punishment. Even if we have no exact location, it is evident the story takes place upon wild and unknown lands. What better context for mystery and adventure. Hidden in descriptions we find “beyond the fence the forest stood up spectrally in the moonlight” (45). What a waste of opportunity. Why wouldn’t Conrad take advantage of the suspense related to a mysterious forest? But he is so immersed in describing interactions between characters whichever those may be that he fails to provide the action.

Heart of Darkness vividly describes a hierarchy and a mission crucial in the understanding of a historical context. Through Conrad’s writing we learn much about European colonization and their relation with native peoples. Many things can be inferred from the text, especially concerning the questionable side of human spirit. However, the novel fails to maintain my attention for long. The pages lack the action that keeps you awake at times where a nap can easily seduce the mind.

A Harsh Reality

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness portrays cruelty and mistreatment through unusual lenses. He vividly describes situations beyond the moral comprehension of human mind without flinching. Maintaining a serious tone through the pages, he resembles news presenters who seem equally affected by a massacre and a celebrity gossip. He describes his situation as if human sin was universally accepted and mundane, as if we had seen everything and whatever else happened was merely a repetition of a past catastrophe and not nearly as impressive.

Charles Marlow happens to come across some hostile situations with such frequency that they define his routine. When word comes that the previous captain to his ship was murdered, he sets out to find the body. As he finds it we face detailed descriptions ranging from the murderers to “the grass growing through his ribs tall enough to hide his bones” (13). As a reader I have time to picture the organs decomposed into the soil, maybe swallowed by some starving animal, the brothers that never had a chance to give him that last hug, maybe kids that never really knew what it was like to grow up with a father, a lonely woman with the duties of a household left by herself and so much misery that accompanies death. To Marlow death is a natural consequence of life and misery is part of everything humanity comes across. He cares not about another tragedy more than the waves that rush past the stern.

But death is a light matter when human creativity meets egocentric greed. Humans are capable of far worse than murder and Conrad knows it. Back at the camp, Marlow goes for a walk only to find slaves walking around in chains. He “could see every rib, the joints of their limbs where like knots in a rope; each had an iron collar on his neck, and all where connected together with a chain whose bights swung between them, rhythmically clinking” (25). The image would fail to be more impressive if we where there. Conrad’s imagery and attention to detail makes situations drill into our conscience even as Marlow discards them hastily. The narrator becomes a vehicle through which Conrad condemns the conditions slaves where subject to, the conditions in which humanity was building a future.

What we find inside the novel is no surprise after the title. The pages portray a cruel reality resulting from dark hearts and wicked leaders. There is no hope in his writing, no allusion to grandeur and honor. I only expect to find more misery, greater injustice and moral dilemma as I continue my reading of Heart Of Darkness.

Oh Comedy

The third Act of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard exhibits element of comedy. Comedy isn’t always great. In this case, it is so lame that it becomes funny. It is almost as if the comedy lied behind ridiculing comedy by making it absurd. Of course, that is what it seems to me, facing a device capable of sending an entire human experience to another country in seconds. Checkhov might have been facing a quill, or maybe he was inscribing words into clay tablets. Whichever his preferred method of writing was, his comedy was that much different from my wireless keyboard. My guess is he wouldn’t have found a your momma joke very funny. What a party-pooper.

The third act is much like the two previous. A comedy so tedious should be illegal. How thrilling would it be to read Chekov then? Okay, we get it. They have no money to pay for their luxuries. Chill Checkhov, no need to make that any more evident. Much like a child begging for you to listen to his story, the intrusive musicians finally make their way into the stage. Varya says, “here we’ve hired musicians, and what are we going to pay them with?” To which Trofimov responds, “if the energy you have expended… had gone into something else, ultimately, you might very well have turned the world upside down.” (353). How absurd. The stubborn Trofimov puts down the few words that make some logical sense in the play. But who’s lines would you rather read? The play is already monotonous as it is, imagine if things started to make sense. His comedy lies in making a representation of routine so absurd that questions the utility of our existence.

The family lies in the brink of bankruptcy. They have been given a solution to their troubles and the means to achieve it. However, they remain unshaken by their future. Unless it is college, for who would want to miss so much fun? When some more sense finds its way miraculously into the play hinting towards future stability, the mother confesses that she “would gladly let you marry Anya, I swear it, only you must study, my dear, you must get your degree” (358). Because that will be really useful once they’ve lost all possessions. As long as they have enough material to feed their tedious conversation it makes sense to keep it up. I warn you, the modern Chekhov lives in Pasto, and we just haven’t been able to find him.

His comedy lies on absurdity. Everything the character say from their solutions to their responses makes no sense with anything any other character thinks about. He mocks something so mundane as routine making it absurd, thus demonstrating how empty so many things we praise could really be. I’m sorry if my comedy is worse than his. I find comfort in thinking we could have been good friends.

A Blog Post

In his play, The Cherry Orchard, Chekhov exhibits possibilities of literature new to my experience. In his description of events, he integrates vivid detail along with mention to banal activities. As we read we find characters doing anything from smoking to eating pickles, even when mention of these makes no relation to the dialogue. I had never read anything of the sort, expecting every word to add up to the ultimate meaning of a text. It took some time for me to adapt to this new narration, and still longer for me to appreciate such intense detail.

At the beginning of Act 2, Charlotta begins to share her past. She mentions details about her parents, her education and her country of birth. Suddenly, the narration intrudes into her story as we learn that she “takes a cucumber out of her pocket and eats it” (337). Not only is it completely isolated from her story; there is nothing that leads up to, or suggests, the entrance of a vegetable. At first it seems weird, almost as if this play was some sort of strange production from one of those guys in history whose strange mental state is their most intriguing asset. It continues to happen repeatedly, and as we read “Yawns, then lights a cigar,” we feel as if we were about to yawn as we create connections to reality. Then, after enough yawns, we realize that the problem is not this text but other narrations we are used to. Our frustrations don’t come from abnormality, but from extreme normality. It is Chekhov’s intent to mimic reality, or the normal, mundane events of everyday life, that exasperates us.

Reflect now upon the implications of reality. The first problem I face after such reflection is the intent of literature. Is writing, and other forms of art, supposed to imitate reality as to produce a tangible record of history? Are they supposed to recreate reality with opinion as to allow other to live their experience, or is it supposed to be an outlet for creativity and the materialization of individual conceptions? I tend to be very objective, and therefore writing in my life used to be primarily a means to keep record and reflect reality. Although I continue to enjoy objective writing and such texts that analyze numbers and a reality founded in science, these past years I have undergone a paradigm shift. With every novel that I read I begin to question my mentality as I find delight in literature beyond the mere facts writing can transmit. Even beyond that, this play proves how facts can become tiresome at times when our lives are already being bombarded by meaningless data.

So Similar

As I turned the pages of Anton Cheekhov’s The Cherry Orchard , its resemblance to Pride And Prejudice immediately stood out. The play revolves around impressions and the relationship between personalities. The plot itself fails to stand out as extraordinary, but rather it is relations that make ordinary events entertaining. Again, money drives people and their actions, social standings are made evident in descriptions and the event are easily foreshadowed. When relating it to something so similar in the near past, my mind made quick connections between the two works to enhance my understanding. There were more logical connections than I would have predicted.

In a family of such bluff and materialist personalities, it would be a shame not to have at least one thinking individual. It used to be Elizabeth Bennet, now we have Anya and Varya in her place. Even as they publicly recognize their poor financial situation, the family continues to live as if it was seasonal trouble and would soon disappear. Anya is first to recognize their mother’s habits, for she “had dinner in a station restaurant, she always ordered the most expensive dishes and tipped each of the waiters a ruble” (320). Not only are they concerned with the situation, they recognize that a change is in order. And so, much like Elizabeth rejected Mr. Collins and a world based on impressions, these two girls disregard public opinion as long as they get to eat. When Pishchik asks for money to pay the interest on his mortgage, it is as if their mother had been role-playing a while ago and quickly forgot their condition. Varya intervenes, reminding both “we have nothing, nothing at all!” (329). A character that is able to keep a grasp of reality when everybody else builds upon optimism is always a character with which the great majority of readers identify. These two girls meet this role and eventually become a source of credibility in the play.

In the animal kingdom mothers are always example to their offspring, which grow up imitating their behavior. Humans are part of such tendency, making it logical for mothers in the texts to encompass the spirit of society. Mrs. Bennet used to incite her daughters to marry a rich man in order to live a worthy life in the luxuries of a great estate: those where the priorities in her society. Her substitute, Lyubov Andreyevna displays similar indicators. She lives in a great estate full of luxuries that work towards appearances. She is not stupid, even if not incredibly bright, and understands the extent of her assets, or lack of. She chooses to ignore trouble and live the day with little care for distant future, which reflects the attitude of a society. This mentality is evident in Pishchik as he asks for a loan while “something else [turns] up, if not today- tomorrow…Dashenka will win two hundred thousand… she’s got a lottery ticket” (330). It is a consumer oriented society that has little understanding of investment, perfectly portrayed by the mother.

As similar contexts come together in describing an idea, characters bred by such contexts connect immensely. This is probably a result of logical human behavior, for our context shapes who we are and how we think. More than coincidence, these connections emerge as a result of authors understanding the every detail in a situation from the social trends to popular behavior.

The Wrong Lens

Even the bravest heroes and most brilliant minds in history conformed humanity. Capable of sin, humans will always have something target of critic, both as a group and as individuals. Mark Twain is no exception. Our character is shaped out of everything that senses encompass. If society labels something as “evil” we will forever take it as such, even if it might have been heroic had society chosen so. Highlighting the positives serves no purpose. If we are to comprehend and study Mark Twain we must embrace his every particularity.

There have been, and still are, societies in which the concept of a single man courting various women is not only tolerated, but praised. In fact, great historical figures ranging from military geniuses to exemplary leaders fall into this category. Should that make them less heroic? The question is not whether Mark Twain experienced influence and even inspiration from minstrel shows, but how important this might be. Does it really matter? Will it change the way we perceive his novel? Is it really such a surprise? All forms of art are ultimately a representation of reality and our understanding of such, including writing. If, in writing a novel heavily reliant on historical data, Mark Twain embraced an already existent representation of the communication that goes on between certain individuals, should that be looked down upon?

In The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn Twain demonstrated a clear opposition to slavery and racism. He narrates a story of liberty and depicts the friendship between a white boy and a black slave. In making the reality clearer through language, he even makes our opposition to racism stronger as we connect with Jim on an emotional level. At the end “they all agreed that Jim had acted very well, and was deserving to have some notice took of it, and reward.” We accompany Jim through his troubles only to discover an exemplary person and true friend in him. Twain exposes the character’s ignorance as his strength for in it he irradiates trust. Unlike a minstrel show, the novel concludes in a heightening of a black individual as a result of his condition.

Mark twain is not a racist, and he did not intend to mock a respectable group of people. Far from it, he acknowledged them as equals in the conditions of a friendship. Many things add up as influence in the resulting piece, but if we must resent the responsible consider history and those who enforced it. Mak Twain accepted a reality and masterfully put it on paper for those to come, for those of us with the bliss of having had society say no to “racism” as it shaped our character.

So Much Drama

Authors are as subject to misunderstandings as we all are. It is highly possible that out of 400 pages a few words end up conveying the wrong ideas. But, when said word appears 200 times it is naive to call it a mistake and ignorant to meddle with it. Disagreeing with the use of the language in a novel expresses dislike for the novel itself, for it is one of the components of the work, sometimes far beyond content.

I wouldn’t use “nigger” in my writing and much less in my daily experience, strongly disapproving of anyone who tries to do so in a demeaning manner. It is disrespectful and demeaning to flag a group of people with an offensive term, but isn’t in equally disrespectful to forget their past as one of the building blocks for humanity. A whole community did not go through slavery and discrimination for centuries to be forgotten in the diplomacy of modernity. Dr Sarah Churchwell expresses a similar point as she argues such “word is totemic because it encodes all of the violence of slavery.”

In reading The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn we find this argument even more absurd. Mark twain not only evades any offences as consequence of racism, but he exposes a critique to this behavior. We find Huck’s adventures and his plans intriguing, but tend to forget that they all revolve around Jim’s freedom and his dislike for racial misconceptions. When Tom Sawyer describes the typical prisoner he explains: “they wouldn’t use a goose-quill if they had it. It ain’t regular.” In the same manner, Mark Twain imitates the real language as part of narrating a story with historical context. He could have replaced “nigger” with a vast number of words, but “it ain’t regular.”

The method for introducing this classic of literature into scholar curriculum is not a change of words, but a change of mentality. With a simple introduction to a context, and minimal historical understanding, any reader should feel unaffected by Mark Twain’s vocabulary.