Thesis presentation.

1. Art of Darkness: “The Horror! The Horror!” of Trauma
“Abandon all hope ye who enter here…”
– Dante, Inferno.

2. Joseph Conrad
Heart of Darkness (1899)
Proto-Modernist
Mark Z. Danielewski
House of Leaves (2000)
Late Postmodernist

3. Introduction to Trauma
Introduction to the Texts
Chapter Blueprints:
1. “What the Thunder Said”: Traumatic Echoes
2.“Hell Sucks”: Traumatic Trippin’
3. “There Will Always be a Darkness”: The Art of Darkness
Theoretical Postscript

4. Trauma (PTSD)
1.Intrusive Past
2.Hyper-arousal
3.Constriction

5. Heart of Darkness
Marlow voyages up an unnamed river
Confronts evil incarnate (Kurtz)
Experiences “pure abstract terror” (92)
Lies to conceal “the horror” a year later
After an undetermined period, he works through this horror,
reliving it in every detail

6. House of Leaves

7. 1.“What the Thunder Said”: Traumatic Echoes

9. “…the flying terror of the sound…”
(Heart of Darkness 95)
“And I heard – him – it – this voice – and the
memory of that time itself lingers around me,
implacable, like a dying vibration of one immense
jabber … voices, voices …”
– Conrad (Heart of Darkness 76)

10. A Sketch by Johnny …
“…her voice sounding as if it would shatter the world, fill it
with thunder and darkness, which I guess it finally did.”
– Johnny (House of Leaves 517)

11. 2.“Hell Sucks”: Traumatic Trippin’

12. “…coming out of some heavy heart-
of-darkness trip …” (Dispatches 8).

13. Comic Book of Darkness: Anyango depicts Marlow as Conrad
“It seemed somehow to throw a kind of light on everything about me – and into my
thoughts…” (Heart of Darkness 35).

14. From House of Leaves’ Appendix…
“…right now going to hell
seems like a pretty sound bet.”
– Johnny (House of Leves43)

15. 3.“There Will Always be a Darkness”:
The Art of Darkness

16. “It’s like horror more than sadness . . .”
– David Foster Wallace (Infinite Jest 73)

17. “We penetrated deeper
and deeper into the
heart of darkness…”
(Conrad 63).

18. The Navidson Record: “… the sight
darkness itself…” (xxi).

19. The Labyrinth of Trauma Theory …

20. Questions or Suggestions?