In the "Author's Note" that accompanied the second British edition of Heart of Darkness in book form (1902), Conrad responds to the "literary speculation" (9) that swirled around his surrogate narrator Marlow by describing their relationship as if it were an actual friendship rather than an effect of artistic creation. When Conrad hints at one point that with the disappearance of his creator, Marlow's "occupation would be gone and he would suffer from that extinction" (10), it is possible to take this as a bad joke, if one that anticipates later modern critical developments such as the emergence of the concept of the "death of the author."( n1) But what are we to make of the fact that Conrad's somewhat glib allusion to his proxy's potential unemployment occurs in the preface to a novella so fundamentally--and darkly--preoccupied with the themes of work, the extinction of work, and death? After all, near the beginning of his journey upriver, Marlow will encounter a set of figures who tread the line between work and extinction, but this time in a situation much less whimsical than that framed in the "Author's Note":They were dying slowly--it was very clear.
CONRAD TAAKIMOEAKA
CONRAD TAAKIMOEAKA
CONRAD TAAKIMOEAKAThey were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now,--nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom. Brought from all the recesses of the coast in all the legality of time contracts, lost in uncongenial surroundings, fed on unfamiliar food, they sickened, became inefficient, and were then allowed to crawl away and rest. (35)Worked until they can work no more, until they "became inefficient," these native laborers have been abandoned to an "extinction" far more dire than the one predicted by Conrad for his character. Nevertheless, however different the tonal bearings of the two passages, in conjunction...
Very good
excellent writing skills. the content is good too,i should add.
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