A Narrow Fellow in the Grass, by Emily Dickinson

A narrow fellow in the grass
Occasionally rides;
You may have met him,--did you not,
His notice sudden is.

The grass divides as with a comb,
A spotted shaft is seen;
And then it closes at your feet
And opens further on.

He likes a boggy acre,
A floor too cool for corn.
Yet when a child, and barefoot,
I more than once, at morn,

Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash
Unbraiding in the sun,--
When, stooping to secure it,
It wrinkled, and was gone.

Several of nature's people
I know, and they know me;
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality;

But never met this fellow,
Attended or alone,
Without a tighter breathing,
And zero at the bone.

The Poisonwood Bible and Heart of Darkness

"We aimed for no more than to have dominion over every creature that moved upon the earth. And so it came to pass that we stepped down there on a place we believed unformed, where only darkness moved on the face of the waters." Orleanna, pg 10.
How does Orleanna's statement echo the story of European colonialism in Heart of Darkness?  Why is it vital that the story be told by the "beautiful women"?  Should they be kept out of it?

"Jesus is Bangala."  This mis-statement on the part of the missionaries in PB indicate that the precious becomes Poisonwood.  Compare the way Conrad and Kingsolver deliver the message of serpent, poison, whiteness and darkness.

Axel Ebenroot, Nathan Price and Orleanna.  Do you see parallels between these characters and characters in H of D?

Compare the historic-political contexts of both works: The Eisenhower mission versus King Leopold's.  Is it significant that Orleanna had a portrait of Eisenhower with her?



Finally, does the snake charm?  Is it evil? or is it sacred?
“There’s not a thing in this world that hides as good as a green mamba snake.” (Kingsolver, 119)

Post your Heart of Darkness comments and responses here....

Post-RR1 Heart of Darkness

As this section evolves, we see Marlow start to take notice of the splitting inequalities and the ineffectiveness of the colonizers through his descriptions. The first thing that caught my attention as did Marlow’s was the fact that the black men who were tortured and imprisoned were not considered as enemies but more as criminals. The term criminal refers to someone who has wronged and not someone who is actively opposed or hostile as an enemy. Therefore, it is almost as if they have wronged by being of a different and seemingly inferior land. Because they are not as worthy as the white colonizer, they have to be punished for “crime” which in reality is only valid for the white supremacy ideology. Marlow also describes this law that has come to them as an “insoluble mystery from over the sea” which is a direct reference to the foreign colonizers from Europe. This once again demonstrates an injustice because these black men and women are being judged under a judicial system that is foreign to them and does not agree with their values and ways of life. Furthermore, the African population is characterized by “pain, abandonment and despair” because they are recognizing this injustice but have no way of fighting against it because the white man has forced a false justice upon them.

This discrimination is put into comparison with the physical and mental state of the colonizers in the African continent. Marlow describes the company’s chief accountant as having “collars, vast cuffs, brushed head”. He was able to conserve his appearance with all the atrocities that surround him, which shows to what extent he disregards the injustice. This demonstrates the tone of non-chalance in this part of the book because all the white men who work in Africa are attempting to live their elite and supreme lives at the expense of the poor black people that they are torturing and enslaving. They are cold-hearted and this is shocking to Marlow because he sees the irony in the situation. The white men believe that what they are doing is improving the standards of the African population as well as advancing their private trade corporations but Marlow sees that they are ineffective. He makes this sarcastic comment: “can’t say I saw any road or any upkeep, unless the body of a middle aged negro, with a bullet-hole in his forehead, upon which I absolutely stumbled three miles further on, may be considered a permanent improvement” (page 24) to demonstrate that the white men are only being effective in unnecessary violence and personal greed.

Another thing that Marlow notices in this part are the false pretexts under which the white men are going into Africa. He makes comments such as “there is a taint of death, a flavor of mortality in lies” which proves that the Europeans are lying about going into Africa for humanitarian purposes which foreshadows a downfall or “taint of death” that is yet to come. Furthermore, towards the end of the part we see that Marlow is starting to slowly develop an opinion about imperialism and I consider him to question its necessity as well as its effectiveness. Marlow calls the “grove” or area in which he sees the dying African men the "dark heart" of his station. These men have been severely tortured and all he can seem to offer them is a biscuit. This biscuit in my opinion represents the minimal things that the white men are doing for the people they exploit because the remedy for excessive torture, starvation and exploitation is a biscuit that is good for nothing. Finally, the dark heart is an allusion to the title because it is there that Marlow sees the disappearance of humaneness with the induced suffering of one man by another. The dark heart is the place where these men have come to disregard their value for human life and get away with such crimes.

you are becoming scientifically interesting....I'm watching you read Heart of Darkness!

Dali's dream sequence in Spellbound: just mute the sound....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvAC3420t5A

"Facing It"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90yxqlVrLP8&feature=related

If anyone can build another post around why context matters, do so here....

Why does Context Matter

Dear OIB class,
You say the questions on the quiz seem like random, trivial matters, but I disagree.  I'm beginning Fences with my Premieres today.  I open the work to the first page, where context is described.  I remember now, the comment made by August Wilson regarding life in Pittsburgh...the European immigrants found they could achieve their dreams through the promise offered by industry there: "The city grew.  It nourished itself and offered each man a partnership limited only by his talent, his guile, and his willingness and capacity for hard work.  For the immigrants of Europe, a dream dared and won true.
The descendants of African slaves were offered no such welcome or participation."
It is incredible how texts come to life again when we reread them and how stale and uninteresting they become in a fuzzy recall haze.  You see, Troy's father was a sharecropper and Troy was a sanitation worker.  These may seem like small, random facts for the student who works far away from the text and only close to the basic plot, but to know that Troy's father had lived the life destined to the descendants of slaves, a form of labor still tied to the land and often comparable to serfdom, illuminates our understanding of Troy as tragic hero.  Troy, a sanitation worker, is a step beyond, but still in a position of segregation--African-Americans did not ride up front, but hauled the garbage in the back.  This informs Troy's frustrations and helps explain his conflicts with the other characters in the play.  It will build his tragedy as well, as these frustrations cause him to leave first base, go over the fence and destroy his marriage.
In fact, August Wilson is writing the history of postbellum America, the heritage lived out by African Americans.  Fences, one of ten plays that chronicle this story throughout the 20th century, takes place in the 1950's, at a time just before the Civil Rights' shift of the 60's.  Troy feels the defeat of being the child of a sharecropper, being a sanitation worker, and of not having crossed the color barrier into baseball like Jackie Robinson.  His son, Cory, can have a football scholarship, can go to college, can have a different future.  But Troy can't get that.  He fences him in....and now the real discussion of this tragedy, with the use of the main metaphor, with the use of character analysis, with the use of this particularly important contextual point, kicks in.
That, class, is why context, seemingly unimportant you may think, is really very important.
Open your books.  See what the authors say.  Many, like Wilson and Morrison, lay it out for you, right up front there... You'd be surprised what the text will tell you.  In other cases, look through your notes, or even the blog.  We usually start with context in class discussion.  Not a lot, but what is laid out is significantly important.  Primogeniture,  gentry, Great Chain of Being, entailment, existentialism....etc.
Check it out.  Then cross check it with the author's own words...Rediscover the texts.  They are way more interesting than the mash up in the notes.  I promise. Think of the pleasure you had in reading the words on the quiz.  You rediscovered those words, and it was enjoyable.  I saw.  You don't have to acknowledge it out loud, but it is so.