Interpreting Texts, Making Meaning: Starting Small

Objectives

Oklahoma is adopting the Common Core State Standards. In order to meet the standards for Reading: Literature, students will develop their comprehension of and ability to interpret literature through completing close reading activities (including making text connections and answering questions at all levels of Bloom's Taxonomy), as well as participating in guided group discussion focused on higher-level questions. As they look at the character of Kurtz and examine his connection to the theme of the nature of evil, I want them to make connections between what they are reading and their own experience, as well as making connections between events and characters in the book and events in the modern world. Often my students think of literature as such a remote thing; I want them to see that questions about the nature of evil arise in current news stories, for example. I also want them to understand that a universal theme not only applies to this one work, or only to literature, but that it can be applied to multiple works in different genres, including songs that they listen to.

Students will also cite strong and specific textual evidence to support their analysis of the text, using a four-square journal activity and making specific reference to examples in the text to support their assertions during class discussion. My students sometimes make assertions about their reading based on what they remember, or what they think a character said, or what they believe to be true, without taking the time to go back and check the text to make sure that they are drawing conclusions that can be supported with evidence. The four-square journal activity, as well as the guided discussion activities and digital storytelling project, will require students to support their assertions about Kurtz and Marlow and other aspects of the text with evidence from their reading. In other words, they can't just say, "Because I think so"; they have to back it up. These activities are also a platform for analyzing how the theme of the nature of evil develops over the course of the text, whether through the use of foreshadowing at the beginning of the text or through the character of Kurtz as described by others in the earlier parts of the book or though his words and actions after he finally appears.

During class discussions, students will participate collaboratively, referring to the text to support their observations and assertions and responding thoughtfully to the assertions of others in the group. I believe students benefit greatly from sharing their thoughts orally, as it helps them process and refine their ideas while listening to the perspectives of others. Heart of Darkness is a work I'm sure students will have varying opinions about, so listening to differing opinions on the question of Marlow's degree of sympathy with Kurtz, for example, will broaden their thinking by considering another point of view.

And finally, as stated earlier, it is also my hope that developing my students' facility with interpretation will increase their confidence and make other classic works of literature they read more accessible and less intimidating to them. By the end of this four week unit, it is my hope that my students will have begun to view classic literature as something interesting and relevant to them, not something to be dreaded.

Background Information – Colonial Rule in the Congo

Since the setting of Heart of Darkness is set in an area believed to be the Congo during Colonial rule, at the beginning of the unit I will introduce some relevant history about the Congo to students to give them some context for the reading. I will provide the following information in handouts and the students will take notes as we discuss the history of the region and the political landscape. Then students will work in pairs to individually create a foldable 'history book' covering the material in a condensed form that makes it more meaningful to them, so they can refer back to it while we are reading (in addition to having their notes). When we read about Marlow's fascination with maps and his desire to visit the Congo, ("when I saw one that looked particularly inviting on a map…I would put my finger on it and say 'when I grow up I will go there") ², I will ask students to write about places they have always wanted to explore and share with the class in order to help them draw a text-to-self connection. Then I will give them each a photocopied map of Africa from 1914 and have them sketch in the Congo River while I ask them the following questions: What makes a territory attractive for colonization and colonialism? What are colonizers assuming when they form a view of indigenous people? My students will have studied other examples of colonization in their previous history classes, so this will give them an opportunity to draw upon that knowledge and connect it to what they are about to learn. After time for discussion of their responses, I will provide the historical information that follows about the Congo.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo was first known as the Congo Free State, and then as the Belgian Congo (from 1908-1960), even though the Congo was Belgian from 1885 until it gained independence in 1960 ³. In 1884, the Congo became the personal property of King Leopold II of Belgium until 1908, when Leopold gave the Congo to Belgium in exchange for a loan. During Leopold's ownership of the Congo, the Congolese were "slaves in all but name". Brutality was rampant and the Belgians monopolized the ivory trade. ⁴ Joseph Conrad had dreamed of visiting Africa since he saw it on a map as a youngster (Conrad was always fascinated with maps, as was his character Marlow). But when he finally went in 1890, the Congo he encountered was definitely not what he had expected. "Conrad…discovered just how much its 'explorers' were prompted by the desire for 'loot'. ⁵ In fact, Conrad became disillusioned "with Africa, with life on deck, with colonial trade, and with white European agents running trading stations throughout the Congo". ⁶ Such was the state of the Congo that informed Heart of Darkness, as Marlow "sees in the behavior of the Europeans, and most tellingly…Kurtz…a self-assertive brutality as savage as any to be found in man's primitive ancestry, and even more dangerous because it is unacknowledged and denied by "civilized" man's blindfolded idealism". ⁷ So, the atrocities witnessed by Conrad as a result of colonization were also encountered by Marlow on his journey down the Congo.

Background Information – Joseph Conrad

It is also during this time at the beginning of the unit that I will begin to ask students to think about their own backgrounds and their personal connections to Conrad and Marlow as outsiders. I will ask students to write in their writers notebooks (a throughout the year) about a time they felt like outsiders or felt out of their element – like everything around them was new and strange. Several students have come to Tulsa as immigrants from another country; also, because my school has a high mobility rate, many of my students will have moved several times prior to 11 ^th grade, so they will have had the experience of encountering a new place to live, sometimes more than once. After students have had time to volunteer to discuss their responses, I will then introduce the information below about the author, so they can see Conrad's experience as an outsider, as well as understand how certain details in the story overlap with Conrad's experience. As Maier-Katkin relates, although Marlow's voice and Conrad's are not the same, "Conrad invested Marlow with details of his own life and placed Marlow among the friends with whom the author traveled…aboard the Nellie during the time the narrative took form". Marlow is often speculated to be Conrad's alter-ego. ⁸ In this way, I hope to guide students to see how Marlow was an outsider in the Congo as well. When we discuss Conrad's Congo journey, I will provide a map of the route of Conrad's journey and students will get out their laptops and go to Google Earth and take a virtual voyage of the Congo River themselves, so they can get an idea of the length and shape of the river, and the surrounding terrain, as well as the navigational challenges both Marlow and Conrad faced. I will provide this information in handouts and the students will take notes as we discuss Conrad's history. Then students will work in pairs to individually create a foldable 'mini-biography book' covering the material in a visual format that makes it more meaningful to them, so they can refer back to it while we are reading (in addition to having their notes). In a related issue, I will also be raising the question of the potential unreliability of the first person narrator, as "we learn about "reality" though other people's accounts of it, many of which are, themselves, twice-told tales". ⁹ This becomes problematic as Marlow is not only the narrator, but also a character within the story. This is a question we will return to during class discussion throughout the unit.

Joseph Conrad was born Joseph Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski in 1857 in Poland, but because of political instability and the death of both his parents when he was young, Conrad, "found himself, from childhood on, a person without a country". ¹⁰ After his parents' deaths, he was adopted by his father's uncle, whom he eventually persuaded to let him join the French Merchant Navy as a young man (French became Conrad's second language, after Polish). When French immigration authorities prevented him from continuing as a sailor, Conrad sailed on British ships for the next 16 years and became a British subject in 1887. ¹¹ Becoming an English sailor allowed him to become fluent in English, the language in which he wrote his novels. Conrad's experience included an expedition up the Congo River, "on a rusty steamboat with a shrill whistle". ¹² This experience had a profound impact on him by giving him insights into human nature and showing him ".how easily Europeans who set forth in ships to enlighten and civilize can corrupt and destroy". ¹³ It was an experience that stayed with Conrad the rest of his life, and provided inspiration for Heart of Darkness, as evidenced by details from Marlow's voyage that echo Conrad's diary (even though there are certainly differences as well). ¹⁴ Heart of Darkness was written in 1898 and published in 1899, by which time Conrad was already a noted writer, ready to "experiment artistically with very private material." ¹⁵ Conrad ultimately wrote 19 novels before his death in 1924, and is considered one of the greatest novelists to write in the English language.

Theme – The Nature of Evil in Heart of Darkness

One of the main themes explored in Heart of Darkness is the question of the nature of evil. What makes a person commit brutal, evil acts such as the ones Kurtz commits as he "goes native" and descends into madness? During the course of his inner journey, Marlow becomes aware of his "kinship with Kurtz" ¹⁶ and, therefore, his own potential for evil, but he chooses not to act on it in the same way Kurtz does; does this indicate that the potential for evil is part of human nature and if so, what leads some people to act on it and not others? These are the sorts of topics and questions my students love to discuss and debate. That is why I've chosen this particular theme to focus on during the course of this unit. I believe the topic will engage students while helping them interpret the theme. They can also find examples in the world around them to relate to the action in the text.

To focus our discussion of the above ideas, interpretation of the nature of evil in this unit will center on five essential questions: What happens when one group of people who consider themselves more civilized attempt to impose themselves on another group and how does that connect to this question of evil as illustrated in the character of Kurtz? Will there always be an individual who, when removed from the rules and constraints of "civilization", pushes the boundaries of "civilized" behavior? What happens to this person who considers himself or herself to be free from "civilization" and therefore free to push the boundaries of morality and behave savagely? What drives people to madness? Is the capacity for evil conditioned or absolute and is it present in all human beings? Focusing reading and discussion around essential questions will also help students make greater sense of the work as a whole and give them continuity by focusing on big ideas. We will revisit these questions during guided discussions throughout our reading of the novella, as passages come up that can inform our understanding of issues raised by them.

In guiding students to draw conclusions about the text, one wants to anticipate some possible answers they could come to about these questions. For example, Marlow says, "All Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz". ¹⁷ According to Tony Brown, the "hideous panorama" that Marlow sees when he begins to navigate the Congo "appears the direct result of the colonialists' actions in the area". ¹⁸ So Marlow's statement could be used to support an interpretation that Kurtz's evil has been conditioned by his experiences, and that his madness is a reflection of the evils of colonization in the Congo and his "incommunicable self-knowledge". ¹⁹ Hence his awareness in his final moments of the atrocities and brutality —"The horror! The horror!" ²⁰—that he has been a part of perpetuating. In a larger sense, this implies that evil is not just represented by Kurtz, but also by the larger society that has pillaged the Congo and brutalized and demeaned the native population.

A related case can also be made that the wilderness was responsible in part for Kurtz's descent into madness as "Kurtz, in his isolation, was found out by the wilderness; the hollow core left by the absence of civil law left him open to the wiles of the wilds." ²¹ Marlow says, "I tried to break the spell…of the wilderness….this alone had beguiled his unlawful soul beyond the bounds of permitted aspirations." ²² In this interpretation, Kurtz has become disconnected from civilization and in his isolation his soul has 'gone native" ²³ and is operating by its own rules. According to Tony Brown, this too could be "…the horror" – "the horror of a void resulting from the voiding of civilization". ²⁴ The horror of a place where there is no code, where the "civilizing" effects of Colonialism have become "abuses". ²⁵ A place that overtakes Kurtz and drives him to madness.

As for the question of Marlow's realization of the potential for evil within all men, including himself, the manager relates to Marlow that "Mr. Kurtz's methods had ruined the district." ²⁶ Marlow, however, realizes Kurtz's brilliance as a speaker and sees him as a force of nature: "I was seduced into something like admiration—like envy. Glamour urged him on, glamour kept him unscathed." ²⁷ Marlow recognizes Kurtz's previous greatness and the powerful qualities he possesses, such as the "commanding power of speech." ²⁸ In this way, he can be seen as a "good man gone wrong." ²⁹ Near the end of the book, when Marlow follows Kurtz ashore after he escapes, the beating drums "had a strange narcotic effect" ³⁰ on his senses and he says, "I tell you, it had gone mad. I had-for my sins, I suppose—to go through the ordeal of looking into it myself." ³¹ The case can be made that Marlow recognizes his "kinship with Kurtz" ³² and realizes that in part because Kurtz's evil is not absolute, he too has the same potential for evil inside himself, as part of his nature. In the end, he resists the lure of the darkness, but returns to England a changed man, having "peeped over the edge myself". ³³ These are examples of the types of answers and interpretive conclusions about the nature of evil which I hope my students come to, always grounding them in the text.