help yr11. (1 Viewer)

[breeza99]

hey i'm in yr11 doing ext english and we are currently studying ' heart of darkness' by joseph conrad as part of our why texts are valued, apocalypse/post apocalyptic genre.

for our assessment we have to present a speech on why the text is valued yet many of my classmates, my teacher and i all absolutely hate this book. so i need help in finding the positives.Has anyone read it and enjoyed it. we tried to ban it this year but the head teacher wouldn't let us.

comments much appreciated.

 

[Hockey_Girl1992]

Hmm yes i feel your pain. Im also doing the year 11 course this year and was lucky enough to get Heart Of DArkness as my studied text. Now im having pretty much the same issues as you here no-one in our class actually liked reading the book and i know theres still about five that will never read it completely.
But however a good teacher told me once that it doesnt matter about the content of your studied text you just need to suck it up and do your analysis... but that probably only applies to the diligent english students that find it basically impossible to receive less than 90% in a test.

Now why it is valued in a text is really up to personally and i dont know if youve studied the concept of reception but its basically using your own ideologies to identify with the text.
So a basic sum up for Heart of Darkness could be something like..
Heart of Darkness is a valued text in a western society as it uses the concept of the heroic symbol, in this case Marlow to emphasise the dichotomy of right and wrong. Which is a deeply prevailing ideology.


but anyway good luck with your study

 

[breeza99]

hey thanks but i think i have to relate it to the apocalypse and post apocalyptic genre, and how the novel reflects this in the settings, characters and the way colonialism is an apocalyptic event in africa.

 

[dizzyizzy]

i would say it's valued
1) as a postcolonial text (although containing overt colonial racism too)
2) yeah, as the canonical western hero text, but as a subversion - marlowe's 'victory' isn't all that, is it?
3) as an apocalyptic text (in combination with the postcolonial nature --> strong elements of modernism)

could be wrong, it was a loooong year ago when i studied it hahaha