Metamorphosis and Heart of Darkness

First I'd just like to touch on some final thoughts for The Metamorphosis.  Initially, I was not satisfied with the story.  However, after discussing it in class for a bit I've begin to appreciate it a little bit more.  For instance, at first I was shocked by Gregor's indifference towards suddenly waking up as an insect.  However, I've since realized that this is one of Gregor's main characteristics.  Also, it would've been pretty boring to read about Gregor freaking out for a couple pages anyways.  At first I thought it was absurd that Gregor was still planning on going into work after waking up as a giant bug,  but I've learned that this is another one of his many peculiar characteristics.  Metaphorically speaking, he was already a bug in his previous life in the sense that he was always working hard, doing menial and simple tasks with very little recognition.  Another thing that I didn't realize until after our discussions was how much to blame Gregor's family was.  Apparently, Gregor worked extremely hard to support his family in the past.  However, they weren't really able to return the favor once he was incapacitated.  At first, it did seem like his sister was going to sufficiently take care of him.  However, as time passed even she began to become more and more detached from her brother.  I suppose this is understandable because the family wasn't even sure if it was Gregor anymore.  From their viewpoint, they couldn't recognize any human characteristics that would distinguish Gregor from the insect.  But overall, I think they could've put more effort into making Gregor's lifestyle better.  They were even overjoyed when he died, which I was surprised at.  

I just finished my reading for Heart of Darkness so I guess I'll do a bit of commenting on that.  The first part seemed really complex to me.  It was like a narrative within a narrative within the book as a whole.  The narrator was recounting Marlow telling a story, within which he told another small story.  To be honest I was really confused at this part.  It seems like he's travelling all over the place, from steamship to steamship.  About this time was one scene that I found particularly disturbing.  He wanders off into this patch of forest where there's all these people just laying around, dying.  Then starts travelling again, and when he finally reaches the station he discovers that his boat was damaged.  Another thing that bothers me is that we never really see Kurtz.  They constantly talk about him and even plot his death, but he never really appears.  Luckily, Marlow did finally have his ship repaired and has begun sailing towards Kurtz, so I'm hoping we will get to see his character firsthand.  In all, this first part has been a little slow but hopefully it will begin to pick up and become more interesting.