Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness
Lessons Slides
Lesson Resources & Tasks
Other Resources
settings_essay_-_planning_sheet.docx | |
File Size: | 179 kb |
File Type: | docx |
questions_on_congo_documentary.docx | |
File Size: | 16 kb |
File Type: | docx |
map_of_congo_1900.docx | |
File Size: | 377 kb |
File Type: | docx |
hod_plot_summary.docx | |
File Size: | 17 kb |
File Type: | docx |
hod_-_model_analysis.docx | |
File Size: | 14 kb |
File Type: | docx |
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(Full text of the novella in PDF format) |
"Meeting Mr. Kurtz"
Below: a chapter from Adam Hochschild's excellent book King Leopold's Ghost, in which Hochschild considers possible "real-life" models for Kurtz. Hochschild argues that reading HoD through theoretical, philosophical, symbolic etc. lenses is mistaken: the novella is, as Conrad put it, "experience pushed a little (and only very little) beyond the actual facts of the case"; we should, therefore, read it historically.
Perhaps the novella becomes even more shocking and poignant when one realizes that Kurtz in no ways exceeds the capacities of real, flesh-and-blood, individual persons for cruelty and violence...
Perhaps the novella becomes even more shocking and poignant when one realizes that Kurtz in no ways exceeds the capacities of real, flesh-and-blood, individual persons for cruelty and violence...