English Commentary - This excerpt taken from Part I of Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness depicts Marlows encounter as he witnesses a group of black prisoners walking along in chains under the guard of another black man,
Passage 4 – Page 12 – 13
Intro (Context / Thesis):
- This excerpt taken from Part I of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness depicts Marlow’s encounter as he witnesses a group of black prisoners walking along in chains under the guard of another black man, who wears a shoddy uniform and carries a rifle.
- Thesis: Through the implementation of explicit imagery, symbolic references and representations along with selective diction, Conrad portrays a struggling foreboding atmosphere of imprisonment while emphasising order.
Imagery
- Images used throughout this section depict a struggling, war-like, foreboding atmosphere
- “The thing looked dead as the carcass of some animal” – explicit image of a dead animal, not moving with back against the ground, choice of diction used fits the mood of the passage and the reader gets a sharp image painted in their head
- “decaying machinery, a sack of rusty nails” – worn out machinery (used in war), once again war images(visual imagery)
- Auditory / visual imagery: “the horn tooted to the right, I saw the black people run”
- Visual / auditory – how he describes the black slaves as they walk – “walked erect and slow... and the clink kept time with their footsteps”: very orderly, similar to a soldier, enforce the war-like images
- Engages the reader emotionally with visual imagery – “I could see every rib, the joints of their limbs were like knots in a rope”
- “iron collar”, “connected together by a swing”, they were walking orderly, they were criminals and as such were chained to maintain order and civility
- “Bursting shells” – auditory imagery, loud aggressive, violent, representing struggle.
