One day, I was taken by surprise when my literature teacher asked a few of my classmates and me to come up with an exciting way to teach Joseph Conrad’s book, Heart of Darkness. This book was among many that we had for study for our literature course. How could we possibly make it interesting? Dramatise it? That would take too long and we reminded each other that we had to think of an exciting way to teach it or at least think of a way to simplify it enough so that any student could use what we came up with without the help of a teacher.
That is when we decided to make it into a board game but with a difference. You’ll understand what I am saying better if you have read the book. If you have not, I will try to make it as simple as I can.
We decided that the journey taken by Marlowe, the man who tells the story in the book, would follow the traditional pattern of a board game with a start and a finish, breaking down his journey into the Congo and the things that happened there into simple game board blocks. We designed it so that a single player or many players could join in Marlowe’s journey. However, what made it different was that while the outer squares of the game board followed the physical journey, the central space of the board had three concentric rings that represented his psychological journey, into the ‘heart of darkness’, where Marlowe meets Kurtz the missing man he had been sent to find, or his metaphorical alter ego. We used the Freudian theory of the Id, Ego and Superego to represent Marlowe’s conscience and his dark, hidden side. The winner of the game was the one who reached the innermost circle and met Kurtz, the anti-hero, or the Id, completing the physical and the psychological journey of the novel at both levels. The player who completed the inner journey was the ultimate winner.
When we started the novel in class, I was not very interested in it; however, after planning and making this board game, I began to enjoy the novel.
I am sure that you have novels to study. I know many students who would rather watch the movie than read the book. However, there are many ways to approach a novel. Designing a board game is just one. Why not try it? I am sure that you can find some cool software to help you. Of course, the sheer joy of cutting squares, drawing and writing game scenarios has its own reward.
My reward for this game was a book of ghost stories by Edgar Allan Poe given by my teacher. She claimed that thanks to our game, she got the gold medal for her M Phil degree, which was on the teaching of Joseph Conrad’s novels. I am sure it was because she is an excellent teacher, but it was nice to let us believe that we had a small part in helping her get that medal.
(Yasmine Claire teaches high school students and attempts to write twisted-inside-out fairy tales. Write in to claireyasmine@gmail.com)