1. Please number the paragraphs in parts II and III and re-read part II.
2. Discuss the long (two page) paragraph #14 part II about the cannibals ("I went forward and ordered the chain . . ) Consider the way that restraint is used as a motif in throughout the novella.
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The action proclaimed in the book forces Marlow, who we know 'does not see the secret of a story inside like a kernel', to a connection of the physicality and the mentality. He asks himself, 'Why do they act the way they do?' and "Restraint! What possible restraint?"
"Was it superstition, disgust, patience, fear--or some kind of primitive honour?" Marlow finds the Primitives restraint absurd. Why can these uncivilized savages restrain themselves in Darkness, and overcome insanity, while the civilized Europeans lose all temperance behaving like mad dogs. Marlow's proclamation of hunger's all consuming power over men, is determined to not follow for every society, which he calls a mystery: "a mystery greater--when I thought
of it--than the curious, inexplicable note of desperate grief in this savage clamour that had swept by us on the river-bank, behind the blind whiteness of the fog."
Savages with a higher sense of honor, restraint than the born and raised 'pilgrims' of "that sacred fire."
Inconceivable!
I don't think Marlow thinks the primative restraints absurd, more along the lines of Marlow not knowing what they are. He didn't whether it was "superstition, disgust, patience, fear--or some kind of primitive honour". He doesn't really know how the savages are able to survive at all, much less be able to compose themselves and make restaints against their own madness. This whole madness confuses him. Marlow can't wrap his head around the idea of people not throwing themselves into their most desperate and primal instincts when there is a desperate need.
He says that "no fear can stand up to hunger, no patience can wear it out, disgust simply does not exist where hunger is; and as to superstition, beliefs, and what you may call principals, they are less than chaff in the breeze."
Basicly, people are suppost to be desperate in this darkness, not logical and moral standing.
And yet, it is the people with the sacred fire that are losing their minds.
I think this passage has a very interesting view that Marlow has of these savages and how their “motives” and “primitive hounour” are different from the pilgrims. It is an “unfathomable enigma” for Marlow to grasp but yet a lucid difference between darkness vs. light seen through these two groups. Marlow indignantly says, “No fear can stand up to hunger, no patience can wear it out, disgust simply does not exist where hunger is; and as to superstition, beliefs, and what you may call principles, they are less than chaff in a breeze” yet these savages remain “restrained”. This shows the “new light” in this heap of darkness where these savages could have had them, literally, for dinner yet held their better moral beliefs as to the pilgrims who treated them disregarding their principles, patience, morals and honour as men. It’s ironic how these pilgrims were trying to bring light into these “uncivilized” people when, morally these “uncivilized” people were better off.
So i guess no one else decided to post this time?
Anyway, I think the "savages'" restraint is incredibly ironic in this passage. Their restraint is counter-intuitive to everything the Europeans think about the savages up until this point. In contrast, the white Europeans attacked the Congo with reckless abandon. They had no concern for the needs of the savages, only their own gains. If they had considered the well-being of the Africans they may have prevented the darkness they created.
I also think Conrad's adoration of England is a bit hypocritical. He spends most of the novella criticizing the European colonization of Africa. However, in the moments when he's not harping on the Europeans, he's praising the wonderful city of London. I know this is a bit random and not really related to this topic, but I thought it was significant.
I think that so far everyone has picked out the important quotes from this passage, so instead of being repetitive and re-quoting stuff, I'll try to just analyze it.
I think it's a really interesting fact that Marlow points out: when people are really hungry, nothing else matters because their mind is taken over by making themselves physically satisfied. Yet, these "chaps", considered savage, didn't eat up the white men. When I first read this, I was confused about their motivation. Marlow effectively refutes all arguments that could have been made about their motives, including honor. I agreed with his analysis so I tried to come up with another reason for this mystery.
This is my attempt to explain it: I think that the "savages" (for lack of a better word) didn't consider the white men as an OPTION for food. The whole trip is so dream-like and unreal that they don't consider the white men as really a part of their world, so they couldn't even eat them. When they see the black 'savages' on shore, though, they identify with something that's real in the world and their painful hunger kicks in. Before, their hunger was simply put on hold.
On restraint as a motif: throughout the book, blacks, in the company of whites, are restrained. In the first station Marlow comes across, although the blacks are disgruntled with their work, they still do it without complaint. On the other hand, the "uncivilized" blacks heard in the forest are unrestrained; they express their feelings through strange music and incantations. I don't know what this means, but it seems kind of significant...
As a religious function I fast every so often. I often feel the feelings of hunger that Marlow was describing. When it is the time that I can eat, I turn savage.
The puzzling thing about this is how when I am simply hunger, my desire is insatiable. How these "savages" restrain themselves from being the cannibals they are is incredible. I think historically, the cannibals not eating whites was merely out of fear. Word often seems to travel faster than light, and when word comes that a village was wiped out by colorless men, you will probably fear them.
Some restraint, which I am willing to bet is fear, is holding them back. Marlow sees their desolate conditions and wonders why such impoverished people can restrain themselves while the white man has no restraint while in pursuit of his desires.
I really enjoy this idea. When we have great power, we want more. We have no gratitude for that which we posses. The people who have little to nothing hold the greatest gratitude. Like restraint, this idea is paradoxical. Somehow it works out.
Maybe Cannibals can teach us something after all...
What is interesting is how the slave seems most willing to "eat 'im (the "savages") and yet he wont touch the pilgrims. The pilgrims impurity and (I cant remember the word for it) their whiteness on the outside and their rottenness on the inside must be as detestable to them as the dead hippos are to the pilgrims.
Both races react to the unknown in completely different mannerisms. The pilgrims being fearful and the slaves being calm and furthermore showing interest in their attackers. Despite the pilgrims "knowledge" of religion and closeness to God(if you could call it that), they felt a much greater sense of helplessness than the slaves. It is ironic that the people claiming to be close to God should feel the vulnerable at an uncertain moment. In this situation I think the fog represents the lack of clarity of the afterlife and it is the slaves that understand it and accept it more than the pilgrims do. For this reason, the slaves can show restraint against the "gnawing devils of hunger."
I think that the restraint Marlow sees in the savages is incredibly curious to him. He realizes that there is more to the "darkness" and the people of it than the "sacred light" is seeking to lighten. He realizes that among extreme conditions, it is not the 'savages' whom hinge on insanity, but rather civilized Europeans which is incredibly ironic. How is it that the civilized Europeans with their immaculate ways of life cannot bear what the 'savages' can-- incredible hunger that "takes a man all his inborn strength to fight?" I think the motif of restraint is very significant and demonstrates important principles of the paragraph.
James, you can't say that until sometime after 2am. :]
I was also thinking something along the lines of what Diya brought up.. Throughout the novella, there is a distinct separation between the blacks and the whites. It makes sense that they wouldn't look to the white people on the ship as a source of food. Even when Marlow finally sees and talks to a white man, he is in shock and sees him as a "miracle". The black "savages" are used to being treated horribly and have no motivation to attempt to eat the white people, even when they are starving to death. Conrad shows this by ruling out all possible reasons that could have explained this ironic situation...
They simply aren't even on the same level and both groups are aware of this. But at the same time, hunger isn't the only pain the "savages" are going through. Maybe the mental/emotional pain they experience from such unjust treatment is "gnawing" at them just as much as their hunger.
I was thinking along the lines of what James said about the passage. When I first read that passage, I thought it was strange how the "savages" have more self-control than the "civilized" European men. It seemed like Marlow is ridiculing the European men by comparing their composure. Marlow compares how "the whites,of course greatly discomposed" reacted differently than the natives, who have "an alert, naturally interested expression." Both groups were "as much strangers to that part of the river", but they definitely reacted different to possibility of an attack. Throughout the novella, Marlow compares the "civilized" versus "uncivilized", giving us an ironic comparison and showing us how the goal of "civilizing" the African natives was out of whack. Like Nicole said, the natives were better off without the Europeans trying to civilize them. Even though the Europeans may not have thought so,the natives were civilized in their own way.
Also, Marlow wonderes how and why these savages had restraint. This is a very good question. I think to answer this question, Marlow didn't realize that these men were not animals and were just as human and civilized as he (or more). These men probably had such restraint for the same reason any other person had restraint; they were very much human, regardless of what the European men believed.
The natives have a self-control that many white men in Africa did not have, which is probably why Marlow was so awestruck by it.
I think that Diya said it best when she wrote that the natives didn’t view eating the whites as an option. If I were a native of Africa and I saw a group of men with skin I had never seen before, devices I had never thought of (like such advances boats/ships), and behaviors that were unheard of, I would probably view them as a completely different species (perhaps a more advanced and higher one, I don’t know exactly) and thus unfit for a meal.
And I also think that Michelle raised a good point as to why Marlow couldn’t understand the savages’ restraint. Marlow must’ve not realized the obvious (hence his looking outside the kernel for meaning). He didn’t view these savages as completely human, perhaps subconsciously. Thus, he expected them to act like animals, like “a hyena prowling amongst the corpses of a battlefield.” The results of such a situation would be so obvious and clear that no “normal” human would be amazed if a hyena feasted on a corpse. And this is what Marlow somewhat feels he is witnessing; a hyena refusing to eat in the middle of a battlefield.
Like Diya, I think it is interesting how Conrad personifies hunger to be this awful, debilitating beast which can only be defeated through a man's "inborn strength." The "gnawing devils of hunger" (recurring devil motif) describe another evil -a confusing darkness- faced by the men on the snake-like Congo River.
Marlow is confused and blinded by the darkness, as he is much throughout the novella. He does not understand why the savages are acting like humans, ones who exercise restraint against an "inexorable physical necessity."
The Europeans are outnumbered five to thirty, yet the "savages" do not eat the crew. On the ship, or even throughout the rest of his adventure, Marlow never once witnesses an act of cannibalism. He is consumed by the preconcieved notions that these primitive people living in an exotic, different land lack morals, principles, and humanity.
It's interesting how this glimmer of Light shines through the people who've been subjected to the Darkness, which ironically results from that "Sacred Flame" of knowledge/civilization.
The "Light" brought over from Europe created Darkness in the heart of Africa
Going off what Kylea just said, that is extremely strange to think about – a new color of what has already been acknowledged not being fit to eat makes a lot of sense. I think I would be more scared to eat this newfound species. It would be like if I saw some purple popcorn… well actually no because popcorn isn’t alive…. But seeing something completely different to a certain extent would make it less desirable for food yet not necessarily less interesting.
I was also thinking about how “it’s easier to face the bereavement, and perdition of one’s soul than to prolong hunger.” In general, I think people tend to want immediate satisfaction and disregard what may come after the fact when it is already too late. We will gratify ourselves and deal with what is to come later, whether each decision is right or not, at the time not being hungry was all that mattered.
This paragraph discusses the gnawing hunger that the natives feel. Like Nicole, I think that the "uncivilized" savages were actually portrayed as being better than the pilgrims. The fact that they were able to hold off their hunger in the name of morality speaks to both their character as well as their civilization and moral values.
Restraint seems to be used as a motif in the novella as Conrad contrasts the colonization by the Europeans with the obvious restraint shown by the natives in this scene. I agree with Jonathon P. in his assessment of the powerful being power greedy and those with less power being the most grateful. It connects with this motif of restraint, and shows how the natives may actually be better off mentally than the colonizing Europeans.
Dang, it seems like I always come on to the blog only to find that everyone kind of said what I was going to say...
So here goes the lame post.
I agree with Nick that even though Marlow doesn't ever see any cannibalism, he still is convinced that the people lead lives without morals and in a inhumane way.
I also had the question of why the slave was willing with eating the "savage" but not even touch the pilgrams. Because if he was truly immoral and inhumane, then he would have no preference on what the person does, meat would be meat, but the slave judges them almost... Idontknow.
I thought that the restraint of the "savages" observed by Marlow was interesting. Marlow asks "Was it superstition, disgust, patience, fear-or some kind of primitive honour?". The restraint shown by the "savages" is amazing considering that all the possible restraints, such as superstition, disgust, patience don't apply when one is hungry as the "savages".
This is another instance when Marlow sees the the irony of the situation. Marlow observes the immense restraint displayed by the "savages" that The "savages" who are expected to show just as much restrain as a "hyena prowling amongst the corpses of a battlefield". This contrasts with the civilized Europeans who show no restraint when consuming the Congo.
As many of you guys have said before, I think Conrad emphasizes the idea of moral restraint through his irony. The Europeans journeyed into Africa to civilize the "savages." However, we see that the true savages are the Europeans themselves. The idea of self-restraint is evident in this passage as it shows the difference between the white Europeans and black natives. The cannibals did not dare to take the Marlow and his crew as food, no matter how hungry they were. For whatever reason, these cannibals had strong wills to disregard their hunger, and not look upon Marlow as food. Marlow questions their motives for he knows that "it takes a man all his inborn strength to fight hunger properly." This restraint shown by the natives is clearly absent in those who have come to "civilize" the savages.
I read several entries and I agree with most of what has been said.
I think Conrad uses irony effectively to elaborate the themes of morality and moral restraint.
Like Nick and Nupur, I also believe that Marlow judged the "savages" too quickly with little knowledge which I consider a criticism that Conrad makes of society. Instead of directly providing insight into Marlow's psychic however, I think Conrad's writing forces the reader to become involved, thereby drawing conclusions through juxtapositions with his/her own life. I also find the rhetoric in these sections to be very interesting and how Conrad uses his own text to demonstrate the power that language has in shaping identities.
I do however want to take a look at what James said:
James: "I also think Conrad's adoration of England is a bit hypocritical. He spends most of the novella criticizing the European colonization of Africa. However, in the moments when he's not harping on the Europeans, he's praising the wonderful city of London. I know this is a bit random and not really related to this topic, but I thought it was significant."
James, I think a great book that you may enjoy is "How Europe Underdeveloped Africa" by Walter Rodney (73? I think) It is a very famous text that all African studies majors have to read a few times. Your point is actually very significant. Colonialism tried to focus the attention of the people away from the African continent and to the economic glorification of the metropoles. By describing how glorious London and juxtaposing the image he creates to Africa, Conrad is in fact doing two things. (1) He is forcing the reader to understand the immorality in this contradiction and the injustice of colonialism (2) Within the narrative of the metropole and London, Europeans are doing good in Africa. By showing otherwise, Conrad is resisting the narrative.
So, they are definitely not hypocritical. In fact, they are very apposite elements that follow the theme of the book, history, and Conrad's own beliefs, which I will admit are a bit hard to put in a box sometimes.
I think restraint here symbolizes Marlow's confusion with the natives. He sees what they do, and how they act, and what they attribute their actions to, but he just cannot fully grasps their mental reasoning. He does see them as humans, which makes him believe that they must process and evaluated situations and such in the same manner as he does. But, he sees the natives "restraining" themselves, but still doing something that Marlow believes to be completely absurd. If they were truly restraining themselves, in the same way Marlow and the other English people do, they could not possibly be acting the way they currently are. This is the foundation of Marlow's gap of understanding that perpetually plagues him.
Just like what Ryan said, Marlow is unable to understand the native's behavior in face of such calamity. This reminds me of the title, which entails an enigma. The enigma he has, is his inability to relate to a behavior that follows logic outside his schema. I think this is Conrad's introduction of the cultural clash between Marlow and the African natives. When Marlow is incapable of understanding their reasoning, he cannot understand their culture.
It is interesting to see that the so called "savages" have restraint while the bearers of civilization themselves don't. That could, but does not necessarily lead, however, to the conclusion most people are already making. That is, that Marlow is finding out that the Africans are better people than his own race. While that conclusion is a distinct possibility, and one that I am likely to agree with, it may not be true. Look at the words Marlow uses to hypothesize about the motive of their restraint and group them into two categories as such, the first is "they show power over themselves" and the second "they have a controlling force over them." So patience and the "primitive honour" will go in the first category to support the claim that they are better individuals. Disgust , superstition, and fear all would lead us to believe that they are merely creatures who are used to being controlled and have no free will.
So if you wanted to observe this from a different perspective, you could say that Europeans are more free men and don't know when to stop themselves, while the Africans are so timid and weak that they are not even men at all. The difference lies in their culture. Many cultures around the world have gods to be feared, for whom you have to do stuff or else bad things will happen to you. That will bring a fear in any person, and an obedience and discipline not found in the Western world, whether or not that is good is for others to decide, but there is a case I can make as to why Europeans did not have such restraint.
The god of most of the western world is a god without rules, he will take your sins for you and he will absolve you, you just have to confess. While that is a drastic oversimplification is does cover the basic idea that there is no need to be scared of that god, he loves you after all. So western men will act more recklessly with more wild abandon. So what Marlow is being surprised by is what we call "culture shock." Or something close to that.
So while there is a definite motif of restraint, I think it would also be interesting to view the book from a historical background and see how many times Marlow experiences this culture shock, something he may not be able to explain due to the prominent belief that African had no technology.
After reading all of the above comments,I see two distinct standpoints. The first is that the paragraph is comparing the civilized restraint of the natives with the uncivilized pilgrims . The other is that Marlow simply does not understand the origin of the natives actions,whether they hold back out of fear, or "primal honour."I believe that they are not neccesarily contradicting arguments,and are both true. Though Marlow does not understand the origin of the natives actions, this does not stop us from percieving the restraint as civilized, which it very well could be.
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