Keep thy heart with all diligence;
for out of it are the issues of life.
Proverbs 4:23 (KJV)
Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
King Leopold II
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Association Internationale
Africaine (1876)
Congo Free State (1885)
Force Publique (1890’s)
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By 1905, 16k Af. mercenaries led
by 350 Euro. Officers
1908, under pressure, Leo
turned over the Congo to
Belgian Parliament, rec’d
benefits for "his great sacrifices
made for the Congo"
The Congo in 1890
Steamers on the Congo
Leon Rom
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“The Butcher of the Congo”
Arrived in 1886 at age 25
Made District Commissioner
of Matadi
Later headed Force Publique
Notorious for flower bed
Permanent gallows
First International Human Rights
Movement
The “chicotte” in action…
Satire in Action
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Mark Twain published
pamphlet in 1905
It pretends to be King
Leopold speaking in his
own defense, but is actually
a harsh condemnation of his
actions
“By This Sign We Prosper”
King Leopold II’s Death, 1909
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Historians estimate 8-10 million
perished from the violence, forced
labor, and starvation caused by
Leopold's lust for power and profits
American poet Vachel Lindsay
wrote this epitaph:
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Listen to the yell of Leopold's ghost
Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host,
Hear how the demons chuckle and yell
Cutting his hands off, down in Hell.
Outside Issues to Consider
Or some things of interest that help decode
Conrad’s Heart of Darkness…
Who are these men?
Modernity and Modernism
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Technological Change + Foreign Culture =
Acute Sense of World’s Lack of Permanence
Charles Darwin:
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On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural
Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races
in the Struggle for Life (1859)
Karl Marx:
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Communist Manifesto (1848)
Who are these psychologists?
Sigmund Freud
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1856-1939
1900 The Interpretation of Dreams
The Instincts : Eros and Thanatos
Structures of the Mind: Conscious vs. Unconscious
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Id
Superego
Ego
Karl Jung
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1875-1961
1907 – Freud’s follower
1909 – Falls out of favor with Freud
The “Collective Unconscious”
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Reservoir of humanity’s experiences
Universal themes and archetypes – result of CU
What is this?
Dante’s Inferno

The Commedia is divided into 3 parts called Cántica
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Inferno – Power of the Father
Purgatorio – Wisdom of the Son
Paradiso – Love of the Holy Spirit
Each Cántica contains 33 Cantos
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Canto I is the introduction, Canto II is the entry into the
Inferno
3x33=99+1=100=102
Ten is the Perfect Number
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the square of the Trinity plus the Unity of God
32+1=10
The Infernal Layout

Sins of the Leopard—sins of incontinence
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Circle One - Those in limbo
Circle Two - The lustful
Circle Three - The gluttonous
Circle Four - The hoarders
Circle Five - The wrathful
The Infernal Layout Continued
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Sins of the Lion—cold-blooded sins of malice
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Circle Six - The heretics
Circle Seven - The violent
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Ring 1. Murderers, robbers, and plunderers
Ring 2. Suicides and those harmful to the world
Ring 3. Those harmful against God, nature, and art, as
well as usurers
The Infernal Layout Continued
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Sins of the She-Wolf—coldest-blooded
sins of bestiality
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Circle Eight - The Fraudulent
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Malebolge – The Evil Ditches
Circle Nine – Traitors and the Treacherous –
Cocytus
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Region i: Traitors to their kindred—Caina
Region ii: Traitors to their country—Antenora
Region iii: Traitors to their guests—Ptolomea
Region iv: Traitors to their lords—Judecca
Center: Lucifer
Realism
A movement that emerged in mid-nineteenthcentury France. Realist artists represented the
subject matter of everyday life (especially that
which up until then had been considered
inappropriate for depiction) in a realistic mode.
Jean-Francois Millet:
The Gleaners, 1857
Edouard Manet:
Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe, 1863
Thomas Eakins:
The Gross Clinic,
1875
Impressionism
A late nineteenth-century art movement that
sought to capture a fleeting moment by
conveying the illusiveness and impermanence
of images and conditions.
Capturing a fleeting moment:
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Anchored in the Industrial Age, primarily in
and around Paris
Industrialization and Urbanization
An off-shoot of Realism, which is focused on
the present, Impressionism focused even more
intently on a single moment.
Claude Monet:
Soleil levant (Sunrise), 1872
Claude Monet:
Saint-Lazare Train Station, 1877
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec:
At the Moulin Rouge, 1892-95
Vincent Van Gogh:
Starry Night, 1889 (Post-Impressionism)
Symbolists
In the late nineteenth-century, a group of artists
and poets who shared a view that the artist was
not an imitator of nature but a creator who
transformed the facts of nature in a symbol of
the inner experience of that fact
Symbolism
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Rise of Avant-Garde
Freedom of imagination, expression, and form
Haunted by imaginary things
Describes the “modern psychic life”—the
expression of intangibles
Henri Rousseau:
The Sleeping Gypsy, 1897
Edvard Munch:
The Cry, 1893
“I
stopped and leaned
against the balustrade,
almost dead with
fatigue. Above the
blue-black fjord hung
the clouds, red as blood
and tongues of fire.
My friends had left me,
and alone, trembling
with anguish, I became
aware of the vast,
infinite cry of nature.”
–epitaph for The Cry
by E. Munch