Dear Peter,

By de-civilized I meant less civilized than previously. Not  
uncivilized. Europe's sense of itself as Enlightened could not be  
maintained after the mutual butchery and unethical practices of the war.

But Kurtz is a paradigm or symbol for  de-civilization. It's the  
book's main theme to which all sub-themes and leitmotifs relate.

Thanks for thinking of that.

Diana

Sent from my iPod

On May 24, 2010, at 2:16 AM, Peter Montgomery <[log in to unmask]>  
wrote:

> Eliot was a big fan of THE HEART OF DARKNESS.
>
> Is Kurtz de-civilised?
>
> Mr. Civilisation, he dead!
>
> P.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Carrol Cox" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Sunday, May 23, 2010 7:19 AM
> Subject: Re: Mr. Eugenides
>
>
>> Diana Manister wrote:
>>>
>>> Peter,
>>>
>>> Yes dehumanized. De-civilized too, if you will,
>>
>> "decivilized" (which is also not Eliot's word) is an even more
>> inappropriate metaphor than dehumanized. The behavior of the clerk is
>> only possible within civilization! For one thing, even in a
>> pre-capitalist class societies she would not have been living alone  
>> or
>> preparing her own meal. Those tins involved international commerce.
>> Moreover, the entire episode presupposes the atomized social  
>> relations
>> which appeared embryonically in the 175th-c (and Milton with amazing
>> prescience grasped) and only fully (and only in England & the U.S.)  
>> in
>> the 19th-c. They were only beginning to develop in France & Germany  
>> (and
>> this enters into the causes of WW1).
>>
>> So whatever the young man and woman are or are not, they are highly
>> civilized -- and surely Eliot had enough of an historical sense and  
>> was
>> precise enough in his language (even the silent language of thought  
>> and
>> intention) that he would never have seen these characters as
>> de-ciivilized. These vague, sloppy categories introduced by readers
>> rather than the poem trivialize the whole poem.
>>
>> Carrolk
>