Notes Feb 7-18

Heart of Darkness Discussions
Day 2

• Symbolism of Geography acts like a map 
• create philosophical areas
• inner station and outer station
• corrupted sense of paradise, serpent references- Garden of Eden
• What is he trying to tell us about the world?
• Women in Heart of Darkness:
• old wise ones- 2 knitting ladies, aunt
• Marlow- likes to keep the women ignorant and living in a happy fantasy world
• uncomfortable with women- african woman, aunt
• Man in patches- idolizes Kurtz
• represents...
• Joseph- colorful coat, servant to pharoah
• or like a Jester- can't be taken seriously, holy fool, archetype
• Kurtz= demon king
• Preexisting relationship between Kurtz and African women (powerful female figure) 
• described like a goddess
• wilderness looks at her like its looking at its own soul- anima
• Kurtz' real love is the Congo--> personifies Africa
• Heart of Darkness
• Africa mysterious, corrupted by European colonization
• going up river- going through Hell (down river- through paradise)
• Marlow enlightened by trip, but not made better?
• didn't find it a negative experience though
• Is it paradise or purgatory or is he saying they're the same thing?
• Dante's Inferno allusion
• looked at map- river looked like a serpent- Eden

Day 3

• FRAME STORY- narrator (frame narrator) doesn't actually narrate the whole story- just introduces.narrator of main story (Marlow)
• Why do we need narrative frame?
• we can see narrator from third person point of view- reliability 
• "The Lawyer" and "The Accountant" and "The Director" are listening- relating it to world
• nameless
• sitting on a river telling story in the dark- parallels the Congo- wouldn't have setting if it wasn't a Frame Tale
• No reflection if not a Frame Tale
• Against economic imperialism but what about cultural imperialism (forcing your culture on another group)?
• Kurtz in latin means- incomplete, mutilated, short 

The Final Exam... and what to focus on for AP Exam

• Purpose of word
• Rhetorical function question- What is the strategy chosen to accomplish in overall piece?
• Diction Question- isolate one word for discussion. 
• Tone question- asks about narrator's attitude.
• Detail: they said this, and in the passage this happened... (evidence)
• Language: identifying techniques
• Syntax: structure and grammar of sentences
• Study TECHNIQUES AND VOCAB (comic character, asyndeton, a conceit, apostrophe, didactic, ect.)
• Analyzing excerpts of literature
• Why a character does something
• style- choices author made to create effect
• have to read symbols in context
• understanding meaning of poems
• biblical and mythological allusions
• renaissance vs. Aristotle's theory of tragedy
• revenge tragedy- Seneca, ghosts, and Shakespeare- no oracles

Apocalypse Now- The movie is basically the same story as Heart of Darkness, but instead of Africa, it is set in Vietnam during the Vietnam War.