Saturday, February 23, 2013
Connections, divisions, and other threads
It became clear very quickly that Heart of Darkness was a significant departure from the language, plot structure, and characterization of A Clockwork Orange, and, yet, Michele and I decided to pair these two texts to begin our course. What were we thinking? If it is easy to determine the ways the texts are in opposition, how are they similar? In what ways do they work as complements to our beginning understanding of literary modernism? Is Burgess a logical successor to Conrad? As we add in The Dead this week, feel free to consider what Joyce brings to this mix.
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Both authors attempt to critique the British Society of their times and portray how it is known in a different light. Both create a sense of isolation through obscure changes.
ReplyDeleteIn Clockwork Orange, the change in society and issues is overall subtle. A modern London where the youth run rampant at night, dressed in costume, speaking a foreign tongue and committing crimes for the joy of it is not completely far fetched in the mind of an adult in England during the time, but the profane nature of much of the texts highlight the "Shock" created by the modern youth.
Heart of Darkness, though subtle in language and the flow of narrative, contrasts with what was the current English society. The setting of the jungle, untamed and unpredictable, would have alienated most Europeans. Conrad made a point of emphasizing the futility of imperialism, which again showed his disapproval of the current English motto.
Your goal was to show us that despite styling and the topic, both authors criticized their respective eras in order to create a sort of shock.
The contrast that I saw most between the two books were emotion. In clockwork orange we see Alex go to hell and back and can tell through his tone and his actions. In Heart of Darkness we saw opposite Marlow tended to show little to no emotion in his narration I found myself having to pick apart his feeling to find out how he truly felt. The opposite emotions were what made me question why we chose to read theses books after one another. I think the authors are similar in the way they portrayed their characters. Even though it is hard to tell Marlow gives a feeling of being lost and confused and through out the book he discovers himself, as does Alex. Alex was damaged and needed help but was not given it so he had to manage to find it on his own. Even though their personalities were opposite i found them going down the same path.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Will's point about both books trying to critique the British Society of their times. These two books were a good start to the course because they both present very different ideas of what can be "shocking." I believe that both books use exaggeration to emphasize this "shock." In A Clockwork Orange, Burgess uses exaggeration all throughout the book describing Alex's horrifying behavior and the violent behavior of the modern youth. It is obvious that these ideas are shocking and new. Conrad's exaggeration is a bit more subtle in Heart of Darkness. He exaggerates the behavior of the colonists to show the harm that they are inflicting on the African people. Also, as Will said, he uses the setting of the jungle, a very untamed and unpredictable place that would be "shocking" to the Europeans. While these two texts are very different, the both use exaggeration to present "shocking" and "new" ideas to Europe.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Will and Ellie that each book seeks to expose the reality of British society, rather than portray it idealistically and only hint at the seamier side, as in many nineteenth century works of British literature. Also, a lot of the language in both of these novels is complex and has subtle connotations. There are metaphors in each of the novels, but the ideas are not repeated to the point that the meaning is clear at the first glance. Both books implement a 'stream of consciousness' type of writing, which can sound nice but doesn't always make sense. Plotwise, both Alex and Marlow are characters who are a part of the harsh reality of British culture, but learn to question their actions. Both characters seem caught between subdivisions of British society. Alex is caught between the teenagers of the night and the civilized adults of the day. Marlow is torn between the illusion of imperialism and its awful truth. Conrad and Burgess both intend to shock the reader. In some ways the level of violence is the same in both novels, possibly greater in Heart of Darkness, although the violence is more explicitly described in A Clockwork Orange. It's interesting that A Clockwork Orange feels like a terribly shocking and violent book, even though the same, if not greater violence was practiced on the Africans by European colonists.
ReplyDeleteI believe that although both novels are set/involve England, the anti-societal themes seen in each story can be applied to our world today. Conrad may seem like a racist, etc but this has much to do with the lens of his time period which he is writing through. Conrad like Burgess is really trying to write about the temptation and consequences of a horrible thing like colonization or in Burgess' case, the life of a teen criminal. Both seem to be a kind of warning to society about what can happen, Burgess with the dissonance between generations and Conrad with white colonists. The style of writing in both stories may be very different, but there difference is so extreme that in a way it almost brings them closer together. They both seem so unusual and have a very apocolyptic feel to them, setting a similar tone between the pair.
ReplyDeleteWhile this language in these two stories is very different, it is easy to see the connection between them. Both stories are told in a conversational tone, and use similar sentence structure. Also, both books would be deliberately shocking to their intended audience, and extremely controversial at the times they were published.
ReplyDeleteAlong with their similarities, they show very different sides of the idea of "modernism" in two different traditions, although both are undeniably modern. Conrad uses more traditional language (comparatively) than Burgess', and the plots of the stories are very different, although both involve young men 'coming of age.
Both stories are very similar, but show different sides of modernism.
Even though Joseph Conrad’s cerebral vocabulary and stream of conscious writing style in The Heart of Darkness may seem very different from Burgess’ colloquial Nadsat language and varying writing structure, both authors brought distinctive writing styles into the realm of modern British literature. Furthermore, both authors depict the city of London as consumed by the darkness of corruption and the decaying of society and civilization. In addition, the manner in which both authors perceive the deterioration of society is a powerful introduction to modern british literature. However, what makes the two more important is the somewhat radical nature of their writing styles. In James Joyce’s The Dubliners, specifically the section The Dead, the author employs a stream of conscious sentence and paragraph structure
ReplyDeleteI agree that Heart of Darkness and a Clockwork Orange share many traits, but I think that the most important is that of how each culture effects the main character. In ACO Alex is effected because of the violence that is normal and isn't seen as being "morally wrong" by him and his droogs. In HOD Marlow has learned from culture that the African Natives and savage and a much lower form of human beings with little worth aside from how much work they could do or how much money they could fetch being sold. The vocabulary and phrasing in ACO is what separates it from HOD because HOD focuses on the descriptions and the switch in voice (between Marlow and Narrator) also switching rapidly between past and present.
ReplyDeleteHOD and A Clockwork Orange share some similarities in their plots. I agree with Gabe's idea about how Alex and Marlow are affected by other people or other cultures. While Alex was regarded by main stream value as a bad person and forced to accept the officers' definition of being "right", Marlow seemed, to some degree, to represent the common value of the time. In both stories, a major event which happened to the main character and, without the Alex or Marlow themselves noticing it, changed their attitude towards life. Both authors tried to reflect one unique aspect of the British society, for Conrad it was colonization and Burgess it was the expressing of the free will of human beings.
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