The brickmaker is another useless worker for the people in the crew at the central station. People would think he would be useful with the name brickmaker, but he isn’t. Marlow throughout the text describes the brickmaker and how he looked like he was waiting for something or someone. He also states that he doesn’t really make bricks. Marlow, a handworker dislikes the brickmaker because the brickmaker only wants to advance his position whiles doing nothing to gain it. The brickmaker can only try to get a higher position in his job by sucking up to everyone who he thinks might help get higher on the ladder and make him get the job of his dreams. Marlow also describes the brickmaker with a forked beard and a hooked nose by calling him a papier-mâché Mephistopheles. “I let him run on, this papier-mache Mephistopheles, and it seemed to me that if I tried I could poke my forefinger through him, and would find nothing inside but a little loose dirt, maybe”, ( Conrad 41).This means he is calling the brickmaker a devil. The brickmakerhas the characteristics of the devil that Marlow describes him as. The brickmaker is lazy by doing no work, greedy by getting what he wants which is to get higher up in the company without doing any work, and ambitious by trying hard with his sucking up to get what he wants. He also has a silver tongue like the devil by trying to persuade people any which way to get up the ladder. The brickmaker can also be considered a late nineteenth century Jewish man by describing him with a hooked nose and showing that he has a candle to himself. “He was a first-class agent, young, gentlemanly, a bit reserved, with a forked little beard and a hooked nose”, (Conrad 37). This shows greed by being the only other person to have a candle which stereotypes describe this as a typical Jewish characteristic.
I believe that the brickmaker is all the white people in the book. As they all try to focus on the future and ignore what is happening now to them. Sort of how they are justifying enforcing inhumane things in the Congo.
ReplyDeleteI agree, that the brick maker is a symbol for all the white people in the book. However i dont think its because of them ignoring what is happening now but instead because the brickmaker does no work however he expects to move up in the job positions. Much as how the large majority of europeans are lazy and want to move up in their job position and be like kurtz. They cant accomplish this because Kurtz only wants people who want to work and he works hard in comparison to the other europeans who much like the brickmaker only plan to move forward based on their manipulation skills and not their actual abilities.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Leo, th brickmakers expect things to just be given to them. In todays society I feel like the brickmakers are the people that sit around on government checks and welfare without getting a job of their own.
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