Socratic Seminar Quotes

Directions Discuss the thematic ideas/concepts that can be compared through the various quotes.

Beloved vs. Heart of Darkness Saying more might push them both to a place they couldn’t get back from. He would keep the rest where it belonged: in that tobacco tin buried in his chest where a red heart used to be. Its lid rusted shut. You lost your way on that river as you would in a desert…til you thought yourself bewitched and cut off forever from everything you had once.

Beloved vs. Heart of Darkness White people believed that whatever the manners, under every dark skin was a jungle. Swift unnavigable waters, swinging screaming baboons, sleeping snakes, red gums ready for their sweet white blood. In a way . . . they were right. It was unearthly, and the men were—No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of it—the suspicion of their not being inhuman.

The Stranger vs. Beloved But everybody knows life isn’t worth living. They killed the flirt whom folks called Life for leading them on. Making them think the next sunrise would be worth it; that another stroke of time would do it at last.

Heart of Darkness vs. The Stranger Droll thing life is — that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself — that comes too late — a crop of unextinguishable regrets. So close to death Maman must have felt free then and ready to live it all again. Nobody, nobody had the right to cry over her. And I felt ready to live it all again too.

The Stranger vs. Heart of Darkness I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate. The possibility of sudden onslaught and massacre, or something of the kind, which I saw impending, was positively welcome and composing.