MRS. CONTRERAS Language Arts 9 th Grade – Eng I Gifted/Honors Room C209

1. Welcome Braddock Bulldogs!!! MRS. CONTRERASLanguage Arts9th Grade – Eng I Gifted/Honors Room C209 2006-2007

2. Weekly Forecast4/9/07 – 4/13/07 • Monday – Class Filing. Writing Samples Folder Arrangement. "Heart of Darkness" Part II • Tuesday – "Heart of Darkness" Part III. Grammar: Usage this kind to reason is through respectfully to whereat handouts 225-228) • Wednesday – "Heart of Darkness" Part III • Thursday – "Heart of Darkness" Wrap up • Friday – Group PP Presentation (Modernism 1900-Present) Franz Kafka "Metamorphosis" pg 1108

3. Home Learning By Monday, 4/16: • Read the following works: • Virginia Wolf's "Professions for Women" pg 1156 • James Joyce "Eveline" pg 1166 • Jack London’s The Sea Wolf Introduction through Chapter 9. • Study for test on “Heart of Darkness” to include vocabulary (next Tuesday) • Bring grammar hdts 141-150 next week to class for Finals Review! • Extra Credit: Bring research on “Social Darwinism” Have a great week!

4. Extended Home LearningAssignment (Due 5/7/07). • In an effort to enhance student writing skills and performance, all students are to rewrite (retype) all essay writing samples editing flaws and incorporating feedback provided. This assignment includes all hand-written essays in class as well as both research paper(s). Staple updated final draft on top of previous drafts. • Recap Sheets must be updated and placed on top of all drafts which must be compiled in date order. • A student reflection must be attached to the top evaluating your written work this year. Obviously this should take into consideration the feedback that has been provided throughout the course of the year.

5. Class Response…Monday • What is the text's preoccupation with man wasting time/labor on self-defeating/senseless toil? In other words, what could be the author's warning to us about our limited perspective? • What Romantic work read this year echoes this sentiment?

6. Class Response…Monday • Stout man w/moustache takes a pail of water with a hole in it 92 • The station is dysfunctional: people bring what is not needed 98, 101; • Marlow’s boat has a hole, but he sees it and wants to repair it 98 • Implying that there’s a better way, Marlow finds “not a very enthralling book; but at the first glance you could see a singleness of intention, an honest concern for the right way of going to work…made [him] forget the jungle…having come upon something unmistakably real” 111

7. Class Response…Monday • What a man sells out to, “what he belonged to, how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own” is important for man to contemplate. We’re kept too busy to think in the hustle and bustle of everyday life, but if left alone to think/reflect, we may possibly do things quite differently 126 • Kurtz continues to mumble about his high aspirations to prove himself and to influence kings, with the right motives of course 152

8. Class Response…Monday • Marlow states “I did not go join Kurtz…I remained to dream the nightmare out to the end…Droll thing life is- that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose” 154 • Back in the sepulchral city, resenting the sight of people hurrying through the streets…dreaming their insignificant and silly dreams…They trespassed upon my thoughts…intruders whose knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretence…they could not possibly know the things I knew 155 • Earlier this year we read William Wordsworth’s The World Is Too Much With Us. In this poem, the author states that “[g]etting and spending, we lay waste our powers” (Applebee 900). Do you agree with Marlow & Wordsworth?

9. Class Response…Tuesday • What inferences can we draw from the text concerning people and their need for "ideologies"?

10. Class Response…Tuesday • Marlow implies that we all need “[s]omething you can set up and bow down before” 70 • Kurtz “had a faith” that could have led any political party 157 • By the simple exercise of our will we can exert a power for good practically unbounded 127 “Bearing the torch” (enlightenment) dreams of men 67, 83 and engaged in a “noble cause” 72, 82, 85, 90.

11. Class Response…Tuesday • Praying to the ivory (what they think they need) 91; “what saves us [makes it alright for us to do what we do] is efficiency”/legalities 69, 80, 83; which may have nothing to do with “a singleness of intention, an honest concern for the right way of going to work” 111 • It’s ironic that so many people, close and not close to Kurtz, didn’t really know who he was but respected his ideals 157.

12. Class Response…Wednesday 1) What does the text suggest about the human propensity for darkness? 2) What evidence do we see that Conrad is very aware of multiple dimensions of human existence, particularly the importance of our “impressions”?

13. Class Response…Wednesday 1) What does the text suggest about our perspective and our best intentions in terms of origin and leading to darkness? • Journalist asks Marlow if he knew what had led Kurtz there. “Yes,” said Marlow, “and forthwith handed him the famous Report for publication” 158 • Marlows visit to Kurtz’s fiancée: “The room seemed to have grown darker” 160, “With every spoken word the room was growing darker” 161, I listened. The darkness deepened” 161

14. Class Response…Wednesday • “What a loss to me- to us!” 162 “Tears that would not fall” 162 (perhaps if they did, her vision would not be blurry and she might be able to see clearly) “No…It is impossible that all this should be lost- that such a life should be sacrificed to leave nothing but sorrow” 162 • This statement is ironic given the many lives that were sacrificed as a result of imperialism, as if Kurtz’s was superior or more memorable and honorable.

15. Class Response…Wednesday 2) What evidence do we see that Conrad is very aware of multiple dimensions of human existence, particularly that we carry our impressions with us always? • “the vision seemed to enter the house with me…I would have to keep back alone for the salvation of another soul” 159 • Marlow feels he’s carrying Marlow’s memory and essence around and that his memory mingles with his fiancée’s sorrow 160

16. Class Response…Thursday • How does Marlow’s conversation with Kurtz’s fiancée resembles the exchange between a commanding officer of someone deceased in the military and his Widow? How is this exchange related to the death of an “ideal”? • In what ways are Kurtz’s fiancee and African mistress significant in the story?

17. Class Response…Thursday • Marlow and Kurtz’s fiancée resemble the talk of a military leader and the deceased’s widow. The fiancee states, “[y]ou knew him well?...as it is possible for one man to know another…And you admired him?...He was a remarkable man…It was impossible not to-…Love him?” …Marlow tells her that she “knew him best,” which is the opposite of what he believes.

18. Class Response…Thursday • In this way, he preserves her desire to believe in the idol she’d created in her mind. “only her forehead, smooth and white, remained illumined by the unextinguishable light of belief and love” 161 “But you heard him! You know!” she cried. “Yes, I know,” I said with something like despair in my heart, but bowing my head before the faith that was in her and saving illusion…an unearthly glow in the darkness, in the triumphant darkness from which I could not have defended her- from which I could not even defend myself” 162

19. Class Response…Thursday • “No…It is impossible that all this should be lost- that such a life should be sacrificed to leave nothing but sorrow” 162 • It’s ironic given the many lives that were sacrificed as a result of imperialism, as if his was superior or more memorable and honorable. “Ah, but I believed in him more than anyone on earth – more than his own mother…he needed me!” 163.

20. Class Response…Thursday • Kurtz’s fiancée and the native woman straddle the idea of what is Kurtz 163 His fiancée, blind civilization (you and I according to Conrad), mourns and honors Kurtz for who he “was” to her, a man with a set of ideals that can inspire and influence individuals into action; To the native woman, Kurtz symbolizes the dream and hope of knowledge and a future (a technological source). Kurtz, therefore can be likened to all we know of humanity and the knowledge of the past and the future. The “Heart of Darkness” is present in all of us because man’s nature changes not. No label ultimately matters (black, white, woman, man, Christian, Jew, Islamic, etc) as man’s nature is one of upmanship. Top dog is always toppled by the next dog. What can we do in terms of moral judgments when this is the condition at our core?

21. Class Response…Thursday • At the end, a sick dependency can be seen as Kurtz’s fiancée begs for his dying words as “I want- I want- something-something to live with…don’t you understand I loved him- I loved him- I loved him!” 163-164. We know that Marlow lies to her in saying that his last words were here name. He will not tell her that his last words were “the horror…the horror”. Thus, while observant/cognizant of his duality, Marlow will not “speak out” against the status quo. Like Victor Frankenstein, he might fear being thought of as a lunatic, jailed, or worse yet, Marlow may fear “martyrdom,” being put to death when one’s “ideals” are so very different from mainstream society.

22. Heart of Darkness Wrap-up Joseph Conrad Iliet Payan Per. 5 Courtesy of Google Images

23. Joseph Conrad Born December 3, 1875, in the Polish Ukraine. His mother died when he was very young, and his father which was in exile sent him to live with his mother’s brother in Kraków. Joseph traveled to Marseilles when he was 17 and spent the next years as a sailor. Eight years after signing himself on an English ship in 1878 he became a British subject.

24. Joseph Conrad Continued… In 1889, he wrote his first novel, and began to find a way to travel to the Congo. He took command of a steamship in the Belgian Congo in 1890, and his experiences in the Congo came to provide the outline for the Heart of Darkness. Conrad’s work, Heart of Darkness in particular, provide a bridge between Victorian values and the ideals of modernism.

25. Summary of Part I Pgs. 1-45 The Nellie was anchored on the Thames, and five men were conversing on it, the Director of Companies, who was also the captain and host, the Lawyer, the Accountant, Marlow, and the narrator. Marlow, starts talking about the Roman times and its comparison with the European civilization, which then triggers his memory and he starts talking about how he wanted to travel to Africa and his aunt helped him to get a job with the Belgian Company that trades on the Congo River.

26. Summary Part I Continued… Once he is sure he’s employed, Marlow, travels across the English Channel to sign the contract at the Company’s office. Before any contract can be signed however, Marlow is sent to recover Fersleven’s bones, which was killed over a chicken scuffle, but Marlow never found out what happened to the bones.

27. Summary Part I Continued… Once Marlow arrives at the Company’s office he finds two women knitting, one of them admits him into a waiting room. A secretary takes him into a room where he meets with the head of the Company and signs the contract, and the secretary takes him to be checked by a doctor. Marlow says farewell to his aunt which wishes him the best in “aiding the civilization of the savages during his service to the Company” (

28. Summary Part I Continued… Even though Marlow knows that the Company’s concern is only the profit and not for the well being of humanity, he embarks the French steamer with the feeling that he is “setting off to the center of earth” (Conrad “The steamer takes Marlow along the coast of Africa, stopping periodically to land soldiers and customhouse officers” (

29. Summary Part I Continued… When they finally arrive at the mouth of the Congo River, Marlow embarks another steamship taking him 30 more miles upriver. Here he meets the captain, a Swede, and tells Marlow about another Swede who had hung himself recently on his way into the interior. Marlow gets off at the Company’s station, which is horribly shabby, and notices that a cliff is being blasted for no apparent reason.

30. Summary Part I Continued… There Marlow encounters a group of black prisoners kept under guard by a black man. Then, Marlow states, “I’ve seen the devil of violence, and the devil of greed, and devil of hot desire; but by all stars! these were strong, lusty, red-eyed devils, that swayed and drove men- men, I tell you. But as I stood on this hillside, I foresaw that in the blinding sunshine of that land I would become acquainted with a flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of rapacious and pitiless folly” (23). Meaning, that Marlow has encountered many situations in the past, but what is yet to come he has never encountered before.

31. Summary Part I Continued… Marlow comes to a grove of trees and to his terror, finds a group of dying native laborers. Marlow meets a sprucely dressed white man, the Company’s chief accountant, and waits there ten days for a caravan to the next station. The chief accountant tells Marlow that in the interior he will meet “Mr. Kurtz, an unsurpassed agent who sends in as much ivory as all others put together and is destined for advancement” (27). The chief then tells Marlow to say to Mr. Kurtz that everything is satisfactory at the Outer Station, and sends with Marlow a message due to his fright that it would be intercepted.

32. Summary Part I Continued… Marlow travels overland with a caravan of sixty men. Many native bearers start deserting, due to the added burden of the ill companion, and after fifteen days arrive at the rundown Central Station. There Marlow finds out that the steamboat he was supposed to command had sunk. The general manager of the Central Station had taken it out two days before under the charge of a volunteer skipper, and they had tore the bottom on some rocks.

33. Summary Part I Continued… Marlow deduces that the damage caused to the steamer was on purpose to prevent him from reaching Kurtz. The manager, whose authority derives from his resistance to tropical disease, tells Marlow that he took the boat on a hurry to alleviate the inner stations, especially the ones belonging to Kurtz, who is rumored to be ill. The manager praises Kurtz as an exceptional agent and Marlow takes note that he is talked about on the coast.

34. Summary Part II Marlow was reclined on the deck of his wrecked steamer, when his uncle and the manager appear and discuss Kurtz. The manager complains that Kurtz has come to the Congo with plans to turn the stations into a symbol of hope for civilization and moral improvement, and that he wants to take over the manager’s position.

35. Summary Part II Continued… The manager also recalls that about a year earlier Kurtz sent down a huge load of ivory by canoe with his clerk, but Kurtz himself went back to his station after coming 300 miles down river. The clerk, once had turned over the ivory and a letter from Kurtz instructing the manager to stop sending him ineffectual men, informs the manager that Kurtz has been awfully ill and has not fully recovered.

36. Summary Part II Continued… Marlow also overhears that the manager mentions to his uncle a man whom he finds troublesome, a wandering trader. The manager’s uncle tells him to go ahead and hang him, because no one will challenge his authority there. His uncle also suggests that the climate will take care of Kurtz, since he may die of tropical disease. Once Marlow hears the scheme he jumps to his feet and startles the men, but they move on without acknowledging his presence.

37. Summary Part II Continued… Soon after this happens, the Eldorado Expedition, led by the manager’s uncle withdraws into the wilderness. Fifty miles away from Kurtz’s Inner Station, the steamer sights a hut with a stack of firewood which had handwriting on it, but the signature was illegible, clearly not Kurtz. Inside the hut Marlow finds a book with notes on seamanship. The manager thinks it might be the Russian trader, who he has been complaining about.

38. Summary Part II Continued… Marlow stays preoccupied Kurtz during the trip upstream. By the evening of the second day after finding the hut, they arrive at a point eight miles away from Kurtz’s station. Marlow wants to keep going but, the manager tells him that the nights are dangerous, so they wait till morning. When morning came a sudden fog lifted and fell, and cry was heard. The African crewmen tell Marlow that the cannibals want to eat the owners due to the terrible hunger they have, since their hippo was throne overboard by the pilgrims.

39. Summary Part II Continued… The manager authorizes Marlow to continue in the fog, but Marlow refuses, as they surely will ground the steamer if they proceed blindly. Marlow says that the natives won’t attack because their cry was more sorrowful than warlike. Once the fog lifts, the natives attack with arrows, and Marlow rushes into the pilot house. Suddenly, he notices a hitch in the river.

40. Summary Part II Continued… The natives also fire rifles, and kill Marlow’s African helmsman when he went to shot at them, and Marlow had the wheel. Marlow quickly crams the steamboat to the shore avoiding the snap, and sounds the steamboat’s whistle scaring the natives off. Marlow goes and changes his shoes with are covered with the dead man’s blood and reluctantly excepts that Kurtz is dead as well, and is terribly disappointed.

41. Summary Part II Continued… Here one of Marlow’s listeners comments about the absurdity of Marlow’s behavior. Marlow admits that his own behavior might have been preposterous, but that there is something legitimate about his disappointment in thinking he would never be able to meet the man behind the legend of Kurtz.

42. Summary Part III Continued… The Russian trader begs Marlow to take Kurtz away quickly. The Russian has nursed Kurtz through two illnesses but sometimes would not see him for a long time, because of Kurtz raids of ivory with a native tribe he had gotten o follow him. He also tells Marlow that Kurtz is very ill, and has no supplies or medicine to treat Kurtz with; he has also been abandoned by the Company.

43. Summary Part III Continued… The pilgrims at that moment emerge from the station house with Kurtz, and a group of natives come out of the forest with a piercing cry. Kurtz speaks to them and they withdraw. The manager and Kurtz step into the cabin and Marlow withdraws to the steamers deck. There he sees a beautiful native woman. The Russian tell him that she’s Kurtz mistress, and has caused him trouble through her influence over Kurtz.

44. Summary Part III Continued… Marlow and the Russian are interrupted by the sound of Kurtz yelling at the manager inside the cabin. The manager comes out and takes Marlow inside, telling him they have done everything possible, but that his methods have closed the district off to the Company for the time. Marlow tells the manager that Kurtz is a “remarkable man” alienating himself from the manager.

45. Outline:The Role of Women in Heart of Darkness Thesis: Evident throughout the novel, the women integrated in the story cause such an impact and are so extremely important to the unity that without them there would be no novel.

46. Summary Part III Continued… The Russian draws near Marlow and tells him that Kurtz had ordered the attack hoping they would turn back. After telling Marlow to protect Kurtz reputation, Marlow tells him that the manager was talking about hanging him. He is no surprised and leaves in a canoe with some native paddlers. Remembering the Russian trader’s warning, Marlow gets up in the middle of the night and goes out to look for any sign of trouble. He sees one of the pilgrims with a group of cannibals guarding the ivory.

47. Summary Part III Continued… Marlow goes to check on Kurtz and notices he’s not there and goes to look for him himself. Marlow finds a trail in the grass and follows it straight to Kurtz. Marlow talks to Kurtz and takes him back to the ship since his resolution failed. The steamer departs the next day at noon, and is departed with native farewells. Kurtz mistress rushes to shore and calls out to him. Marlow sounds the whistle as he sees the pilgrims take out their rifles and the native scatter.

48. Summary Part III Continued… Only the woman remains standing on the shore as the pilgrims open fire, and Marlow’s view is buried by smoke. The steamer is heading back toward civilization. The manager, certain that Kurtz will soon be dead is pleased, and ignores Marlow. The steamer breaks down, and repairs take some time. Marlow is slowly getting ill, and Kurtz keeps getting worse.

49. Summary Part III Continued… Kurtz gives some papers to Marlow for safe keeping, and confesses to Marlow that he’ awaiting death. Finally, one night, Kurtz seemed to be having some profound knowledge or vision. Later that knight a servant made known that Kurtz had died. The pilgrims burry Kurtz the next day. Marlow nearly died himself of the illness, but the worse part of the experience was that he had nothing to say.

50. Summary Part III Continued… Kurtz was remarkable because he had something to say. Marlow recovers sufficiently, and leaves Africa and returns to Brussels. Marlow’s aunt nurses him back to health, but his disorder is more emotional than physical. A representative of the Company come to retrieve the papers that Kurtz entrusted Marlow, but Marlow only gives him part of it.