"It was the stillness of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention"
Silence in Heart of Darkness
17 May 2007 ... It was the stillness of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention" (Conrad 48). Here, the human is perceived to have no ...
www.qub.ac.uk/schools/.../Silence-Heart-Darkness.html
What does this sentence mean?
Does it have to mean anything?
Art does not always mean something - sometimes it is enough to evoke a mood or an atmosphere. To create a mystique.
To understand the sentence you have to look at the context. The force might be Africa and the intention might be Imperialism. A clash of civilisations.
The sentence is similar to an oxymoron. By putting together ideas (words) that normally do not go together, the intention is to be thought provoking.
There is an element of bluff. A clever person says something that sounds clever. What does it mean? Only the clever person knows. Possibly it means nothing and it does not make sense. Call it poetry if you want.
Robin Michael, the meaning is clear. One does not need context: only a dictionary for the words one does not know.
Dear Joe K
Another topic discussed this sentence extensively. So the meaning is far from clear. It is quite possible for a sentence to contain a riddle. Alternatively, a sentence may be written or said, for effect. The real meaning might be that there is no meaning.
To me, the sentence reminds me of another sentence. What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? For a native speaker, this sentence is something of a cliche. The sentence I have just written, is a cliche, it is often expressed but does not mean a great deal.
Conrad has turned round a common cliche and given it a slightly different meaning. An 'implacable force' - a force that cannot be placated - (bought off). And an 'inscrutable intention', normally - (stereotypically), we associate 'inscrutability' with Chinese or Japanese people. I am not being gratiuously insulting because Conrad is writing about the colonial imperialistic experience.
Also there is the deliberate confusion between 'force' as in physics, and 'force' as in politics. Africa was called the 'dark continent'. So you have a 'force', like civilisation; coming up against something that is like an immovable object, such as a river or jungle.
I realise that I am largely talking to myself. Uriel is about the only person I respects who contributes to this forum. Yet, would I actually like Uriel if I met her in person?
Silence in Heart of Darkness
... resemble peace. It was the stillness of an implacable force brooding over
an inscrutable intention" (Conrad 48). Here, the human ...
www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofEnglish/imperial/africa/Silence-Heart-Darkness.html - 18k - Cached
This sentence is being discussed by Queen's University Belfast. And yes, I know I wrote 'respects' rather than 'respect'. (Why aren't I installing new computer memory into my computer?)
SILENCE IN THE HEART OF DARKNESS
"In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness we are confronted with savage and imperial perceptions of the African Congo."
"As the story moves on we meet Marlow and his men on a steamer beginning their journey into the Congo to look for both Kurtz and the ivory they assume is theirs to take."
Are you following me or have you lost interest? What struck me as interesting about this sentence is that it reminded me of 'Apocalypse Now' which was written about the Vietnam war and going up the Mekong Delta in a river boat. The objective if 'Apocalypse Now' was to meet a renegade Colonel who has somehow gone native.
Apocalypse Now (1979)
www.imdb.com/title/tt0078788/
"The army believes Kurtz has gone completely insane and Willard's job is to eliminate him! Willard, sent up the Nung River on a U.S. Navy patrol boat, discovers that his target is one of the most decorated officers in the U.S. Army."
Is it a coincidence that in both stories an important character is called 'Kurtz' or is this how English literature builds on itself?
It is a little bit more that looking up dictionary meanings! The dictionary meaning is where you start to look - connotation / denotation.
Apocalypse Now Original Trailer (RARE) HQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt0xxAMTp8M
It was the stillness of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention
The noise that the Americans make on their patrol boat contrasts with the silence of the jungle and the incomprehension of natives.
What are they doing?
Why are they there?
Who would blink first?
<Is it a coincidence>
No; Apocalypse Now is based on Heart of Darkness.
< we associate 'inscrutability' with Chinese or Japanese people. I am not being gratiuously insulting because Conrad is writing about the colonial imperialistic experience >
Conrad is writing about Africa, not Japan or China, in Heart of Darkness.
<What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?>
In the common philosophical question, the force and the object are antagonistic. But in Conrad's phrase, they are complementary. The similarity is one of structure and alliteration, rather than meaning.
By the way, <So the meaning is far from clear> does not follow from <Another topic discussed this sentence extensively>. Many very clear things are discussed extensively.
"But in Conrad's phrase, the force and the intention are complementary."
"What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?"
It's as simple as that:
The force ceases to be unstoppable or the object stops to be immovable.
The sentence itself is illogical because one cannot even say that in it there is a sort of flawed logic, or a shred of logic. The very sentence cannot be evaluated at all. It's a linguistic stunt.