Joseph
Conrad said “that the avowed aim of his fiction was ‘to make you hear,
to make you feel, above all to make you see.’
The epic sweep of his descriptions of nature often suggests a disquieting sense
of the larger world’s indifference to the fates of the mortal men and women
whose stories he unfolds. In his
use of rich symbolism and his subtle exploration of human psychology, he
anticipated the direction modern fiction would take.”
--Ann
Charters, Introduction to “Joseph Conrad,” p. 184
“Is
this not the essence of the modern belief about the nature of the artist,
the man who goes down into that hell which is
the historical beginning of the human soul, a beginning not outgrown
but established in humanity as we know it now, preferring the reality of
this hell
to the bland lies of the civilization that has overlaid it?”
--Lionel
Trilling, “The Greatness of Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’” (1965)
“…Joseph
Conrad was a thoroughgoing racist. . . .
Africa as setting and backdrop which eliminates the African as human factor.
Africa as a metaphysical battleground devoid of all recognizable humanity,
into which the wandering European enters at his peril.
Can nobody see the preposterous and perverse arrogance in thus reducing Africa
to the role of props for the break-up of one petty European mind? . . .
The real question is the dehumanization of Africa and Africans which
this age-long attitude has fostered and continues to foster in the world.
And the question is whether a novel which celebrates this dehumanization,
which depersonalizes a portion of the human race,
can be called a great work of art. My answer is:
No, it cannot.”
--Chinua
Achebe, “An Image of Africa” (1974)
Captain
Benjamin L. Willard (Voice Over Narration):
"I was going to the worst place in
the world and I didn't even know it yet.
Weeks away and hundreds of miles up a river that snaked through the war
like a main circuit cable - plugged straight into Kurtz.
It was no accident that I got to be the caretaker of Colonel Walter E. Kurtz's
memory
- anymore than being back in Saigon
was an accident.
There is no way to tell his story without telling my own.
And if his story really is a confession, then so is mine."
--Apocalypse
Now (1979; Dir. Francis Ford Coppola, co-writer John Milius)
Fall 2001 ENG 104 Syllabus
| Course
Plan | Course
Pack Table of Contents | Assignments | Site
Map
ENG 104 Author Links Table of Contents | (1)
A - E | (2)
F - L | (3) M - Z
Literature
Links | Contexts:
Literary History & Movements | Genre
Studies: Fiction
ENG 104 Course Home
Page
YOU ARE HERE
~ Section II. Emergence of the Short Story Genre
from
ENG 104 Course Pack Table of Contents ~ Fall
2001
URL of this webpage:
http://www.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/eng104/coursepack/III_Novella.htm
Last Updated: 11 September 2003
This webpage is maintained by Cora
Agatucci, Professor of English,
Humanities Department, Central Oregon
Community College
I welcome comments: cagatucci@cocc.edu
© Cora Agatucci, 1997-2001
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