Rivets, Language and Tension in Heart of Darkness

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Rivets, Language and Tension in Heart of Darkness I know that someone had “rivets” as their word of the week when we were reading Heart of Darkness. But since the class didn’t discuss at length the section of the book where that word appears, I want to expand upon it here. More specifically, I want to use that section to illustrate some of the ways that Conrad uses language to create tensions at this point in the novel. Upon arriving at the dilapidated Central Station, Marlow finds that the steamboat he was to command has sunk. He busies himself repairing it, and finds the bottom has been torn out of it. The metal he needs to patch the hole is available, but he has no rivets with which to attach the plates. The Brickmaker assures him some will be ordered, but three weeks later Marlow is still waiting for them. The thing that frustrates him the most is that at the Outer Station, there were supposedly rivets everywhere. He tells the Brickmaker, “Rivets I wanted. There were cases of them down at the coast — cases — piled up — burst — split! You kicked a loose rivet at every step in the station yard on the hillside.” The fact that there are no rivets at the Central Station reflects the carelessness of the Company, as a stand-in for colonialism. What do rivets do? They simply hold things together. And these rivets are a symbol of colonialism’s ineptitude, of its ability to hold things together. The Company can get Marlow and 59 other men into a caravan, and move them all 200 miles through the jungle to the Central Station. They’re even able to send along the pilgrims from the Eldorado Exploring Expedition after that. But something as simple as a delivery of small metal bits the Company seems unable to send along, even thought there’s a seemingly endless supply at the very place from which these men are departing. The Company cannot to provide them despite the fact

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