Barbarian morals

Waiting for the Barbarians is thus far a juxtaposing journey of morals and reality. The book immediately features two officers of the Empire with differing views. One, wearing “two little discs of glass suspended in front of his eyes in loops of wire”, treats the barbarians with disdain and views them as a threat. The other, the magistrate, has been around these nomads for nearly thirty years. He thinks they are a harmless people. He supports this view as he quietly tries to help the prisoners the other officer has collected. The magistrate is limited because he knows anything drastic will make him appear as an old officer stuck in the field too long. After the other officer is gone, he begins to indirectly patch things up. The magistrate takes care of a near blind “barbarian” girl left behind. I think deep down he thinks he is helping those people, or making things right by doing so. While his morals are in the right place, the reality instead, seems a little greedy. Given an absence of companionship in his long stay on the front, it seems he is only motivated to cure his loneliness. The two remain together and yet not close for quite sometime. One day, the magistrate makes the bold moving of attempting to return her to her people. Here, he is very selfless. Because of that, and because they are in a new environment, away from peering eyes, the two become much closer than ever before. They are even able to consummate their peculiar relationship. The reality is, she leaves him and her stay with him has probably degraded his leadership role in his community. However, the magistrate’s morals have been respectful and with good intentions. He is not the most likeable character, but only because of the confusing circumstance. He cannot run things the way he would wish because it would be against the Empire. The way he treats the girl is sweet but a bit unusual. If the magistrate should either come full circle and act in true consistency with his morals or succumb to the ways of the Empire, his character could be better understood. Yet, his perplexing nature makes him unpredictable; and therefore, makes the next section more suspenseful.

Letters from Conrad

§ 9 letters written by Joseph Conrad leading up to his departure to the Congo

§ Covers 6 months in 1890 from January to June

§ He writes to his uncle, aunt, friend, and lover

§ Spans the time when he meets this aunt for the first time in Brussels. Seems to develop a close relationship with her

§ Shows he is traveling a lot, London to Brussels to Lublin and back and to Africa eventually

§ Interesting: he changes the spelling of his name with each letter. On average, becomes more as it is now, changes k to c, Konrad seems to be first name but becomes last, changes initials

§ Gets control over steamboat from French company

§ Very polite and extravagant in his wording

§ Off to Boma then Leopoldville

Jane Doe

Who is she? That is my first and final question.During the third section, we are exposed to Kurtz's relationship with the natives. While much of it is unclear, the two sides have trouble separating as shown by the native’s appearance along the river while the steamboat carrying Kurtz drifts away. However, only one person is given a full description. This princess perhaps, is glorified. She is adorned with “brass leggings to the knees, brass wire gauntlets to the elbow, a crimson spot on her tawny cheek, innumerable necklaces of glass beads on her neck, bizarre things, charms” and more (60). The most she does in this scene is open “her bared arms” and throw “them up rigid above her head as though an uncontrollable urge to touch the sky” (61). This lover, perhaps, graces the pages only once more. “She put out her hands, shouted something, and all that wild mob” standing on the bank “took up the shout in a roaring chorus of articulated, rapid, breathless utterance” (67). The steamboat whistle will not move even this friend, perhaps. Friend, lover, princess, goddess, daughter, or something else, who is the Jane Doe of the heart of darkness?

Images in the sound

The use of symbols in The Sound and the Fury changes depending on the section and who the narrator is. These symbols and their appearance in their original and other sections is the main focus of my article “The Words of The Sound and the Fury. To start, Benjy’s section talks about light, particularly mentioning the word fire over forty times. The things he can see and not understand, including the shapes he finds in fire and the images he sees in the mirror, fascinate Benjy. Many times he is referenced as staring into the mirror in a way where he seems to be searching for what he has lost. That is why the bright and open things, light and mirrors, intrigue him so. He is looking to understand and explore the well-lit side of life. Quentin, on the other hand, highlights his section with shadows and windows. His life is much darker as he is haunted by his family relationships. He often stares through windows, which serve as outlets out of his life. Through them, Quentin can observe how other people life with normal lives. The next section, Jason’s, features less of any symbolism given the lack of depth in Jason’s personality. The final section also lacks any major images because it is finishing up the story following various characters. However, the images from the first and second section appear in other areas of the novel although not nearly as often. These motifs are important because they each connect to the character’s personality in a unique way that helps the reader to learn more about the Compson family.

The Words of "The Sound and the Fury" Robert A. Martin. The Southern Literary Journal, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Fall, 1999), pp. 46-56. Published by: University of North Carolina Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20078252.