The Hollow Men

"He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision -- he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath:
"'The horror! The horror!'"
-Heart of Darkness
"This is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper."
-Apocalypse Now

In both Heart of Darkness and "Apocalypse Now", there is a focus on endings. The endings come in many forms and ways. The end to sanity, the end of power, the end of a way of viewing the world around you. The above two quotes are perfect to show how the stories end and how the other ends within the stories come about. Kurtz's death in the two stories are both different, and yet similar. In the book his life truly does end with a whimper as apposed to a bang. While in the film, the cause of Kurtz's death is violent and what one could consider a "bang", his actual death is the same as that in the book, and the death of Kurtz's power with the locals, which comes when Willard emerges from the place where Kurtz was living, is a whimper as well. The followers of Kurtz see Willard and lay down their weapons to show him that he may leave peacefully. Willard even talks about how, before he kills him, Kurtz is "waiting" for him, and "wanted" him to do it(kill him). Willard shows how Kurtz has even brought about his own end with a whimper. The whimpers from the two Kurtz not only signal the end of their world with their lives, but the view of the world that Marlow and Willard had before. Their views are dying through the journey to Kurtz, they both even allow themselves to be seduced by Kurtz's ideas, but when Kurtz dies, for both narrators, the world is shed in a more cruel and different light that neither had seen before. Marlow moves on with his life, after paying a visit to Kurtz's intended, but is forever changed. Marlow's change is shown at the end of Heart of Darkness when the waterway that once showed promise and new beginnings now seems to "lead into the heart of an immense darkness." Willard's change is shown as the movie starts. While waiting in the hotel for a mission, he states, while narrating, that after the mission he would never want to go back to the jungle again, while before he couldn't wait to go back.
When one thinks of the word "whimper" one thinks of a scared or fearful noise, or a hurt sound. In the novella, Kurtz's whimper comes when he utters his last words, "The horror! The horror!" In this whimper Kurtz shows how fearful Kurtz is of what his world has become, what he has become. The "horror" that Kurtz refers to is the horror that he, and men like him, have created themselves. In the movie, the horror is the war and, once more, the evil that he has seen and become himself.
Both the movie and the novella end in a peaceful way that would not be considered a bang. In the novella, Kurtz dies, Marlow gets sick, recovers, and goes on with life. The movie's ending is much simpler. As Lance and Willard begin their journey back to Vietnam, there is a scene of a helicopter flying over a burning forest with Willard's face imposed upon the scene as well and the only thing left after a repetition of Kurtz's last words is silence.

Blog #4- A Simple Story is Hard to Find

In my opinion, a "Good Man is Hard to Find" is a complex story. The various characters that can distract the reader from the central ones, and the many levels of the Misfit make it so. The Grandmother's last few words and some of her memories make it hard to interpret certain aspects of the story, while the Misfit himself seems simple but isn't. The Title adds to the meaning of what a good man is and how every man in the story could be defined or interpreted.

Blog #3 Far from the Battlefield

"Iago, as Harold Goddard finely remarked, is always at war; he is a moral pyromaniac setting fire to all of reality.......In Iago, what was the religion of war, when he worshiped Othello as its god, has now become the game of war, to be played everywhere except upon the battlefield."
--Harold Bloom


Harold Bloom and Harold Goddard are right, Iago is a moral pyromaniac and he does play a game of war anywhere but the battlefield. To prove this right one needs only to read the play Othello. Personally, I believe that we, as the readers, come into the play after the shift from war as a religion to war as a game. I believe this, because, while Iago has obviously been a part of Othello's life for a time, he has come to hate Othello because he was passed over for a promotion. As for being a moral pyromaniac, he does seem to ignite most everyone's passions by lying about various actions, and being not too moral himself. However, he does this through tricks and other people, which could symbolically represent the battlefield. All that he does to hurt Othello, Cassio, and others is usually done sneakily or not directly, on the battlefield.

Blog Post #1- Questionable Quotations

"Music says what cannot be expressed,
Soothes the mind and gives it rest.
Heals the heart and makes it whole,
Flows from heaven to the soul."- anonymous

"I am goin', I am goin',
any which way the wind may be blowin',
I am goin', I am goin',
Where streams of whiskey are flowin'"- The Pogues, Streams of Whiskey

"When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden."- Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

"Time is an ocean, but it isn't a shore,
You may not see me here tomorrow."- Bob Dylan, Oh Sister

"They are not long, the days of wine an droses;
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream."- Ernest Dowson, Vitae Summa Brevis Spem Nos Vetat Incohare Longam

"Grief is the price we pay for love."- Queen Elizabeth II

"I despise a world which does not feel that music is a higher revelation then all wisdom and philosophy."- Ludwig Van Beethoven

Blog Post #2-Having Been Exiled From Thebes..

Now that I have finished reading Oedipus Rex, the question has been posed as to what I have walked away from it with. Well, I like to think that I have "walked away" with a better understanding of the human psyche and some of its more primal instincts. I also feel that question of free will verses fate is one that must be answered independently. While Oedipus did everything he could to prevent the fates from having any power over him, in the end what he thought was free will was just fate. I feel that, perhaps, our ignorance to our fate is what gives us our free will.