Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad - Essay Example

? Heart of Darkness Heart of Darkness, a novel by Joseph Conrad, deals with exposing the darker side of the colonization process by the European countries. The book also deals with the darkness which the protagonist of the novel, Charles Marlow encounters in his journey to Africa. The novel describes the wilderness in Congo, the cruel treatment of the African natives by the Europeans and in turn showcases the act of evil committed by the human beings. The novel is written in the narrative form through the words of the central character of the story, Charles Marlow. The novel uses two narrative situations which often create confusion among the minds of the reader. In the frame tale there is a presence of an unnamed narrator who recounts the recounting of Charles Marlow’s journey and Marlow himself as narrator, though the majority of the novel focuses on the narration of Charles Marlow1. The story of Marlow is embedded in another, which helps in the completion of the novel that depicts the complacent belief of the superiority of the west and the anti imperialism belief of Marlow. According to Murphy, the title “foreshadows the obliqueness of the narrative as a whole” and the story is “obliquely concerned with the processes of perception and representation, that constructs concentric spheres of storytelling in which narratives are enclosed or framed within others”2 The story has varied degrees of mediation3. The depiction of events, which happened in Kurtz’s mind at the “midnight dances ending with unspeakable rites”4 was gathered by the other narrator in the story and presented after some years to the framed narrator, Marlow and he writes that in the novel. The overall tone used in the narrative is of special interest. The novel had excessive use of melodramatic tones in order to create an emotional effect on the minds of the readers. The narration of the details of the voyage undertaken by Marlow was done in two ways. On one hand, precise description of the steamboat and the African woman is provided with phrases like “Dark human shapes could be made out in the distance, fitting indistinctly against the gloomy border of the forest” whereas on the other hand there is a conscious attempt to express certain experiences of Marlow which are indescribable5. The narrative involves a stratum of physical action but at times the interruption of the mental reviewing also involves the depiction of the mental state of Marlow. A number of phases in the novel are very perceptible and some of the narrations have been done in excess which includes Marlow’s sickness as it had a special significance in the story. Illness had been described vividly in the story at various phases and the comparison of human illness with the darkness of the European colonization creates a special impact on the minds of the readers. The symbolism used in the narrative describes the struggle between the good and the evil. In the narrative of the story, the darkening of the sky with the passage of time depicts the atmosphere which Marlow had to travel during his journey6. The novel also highlighted the reason of interest of the Europeans towards colonization through the case of Kurtz. Kurtz have been reflected as a character who has settled himself among the African natives and his obsession and greed for ivory has kept him in the region for such a considerable period of time7. Though Kurtz has been portrayed as a character who is struggling with his health condition and is on the verge of dying, it his greed which forces him to stay in the region. At the end the self reflection of Kurtz occurs and just before he dies he utters the word “horror” which signifies the life which he had lived over the years during the colonization process8. The narrative framework used in the story has a lot of significance in depicting the ideas behind the story which the author wanted to portray. The main purpose of the story is to highlight the darkness of the wilderness of the Congo along with the darkness which the colonization of Africa was undertaken. The two ideas are propagated to the readers at the same time by the use of the framed narrative. The framed narrative used in the novel also has been intended to create empathy among the readers mind as the events are being brought into picture through the voice of the narrator and it turned out to be novel dealing with ironies9. Depicting the novel in the form of a story would not have provided a special punch in the overall story telling process which the narrative form did. In the narrative form of the story, few of the comparison were very much symbolical in nature and it added variety to the literary element in the novel. Though the novel has been much acclaimed because of the narrative structure, yet few limitations has been spotted in the overall narration of the story10. The narratives of Marlow seem incomplete at certain areas and the narration involves use of inappropriate and imprecise language. Use of negative modifiers and repetition of inexact words are in abundance in the novel. At times it appears that Marlow is struggling to depict the story in a proper fashion and the limitation of the language becomes notable in certain areas. In spite of a felling of incompleteness, the novel succeeds in providing a better expression of reality. In conclusion one may say that the novel, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is a classical example of the use of narrative framework. The narrative structure used in the novel is not just mere narration, but use of symbolism was in abundance. The use of symbolism also does not limit the conclusive idea which can be generated from the novel. In spite of the confusion which arises in the minds of the readers regarding the narrative used in the story, it emerged to be one of the classical novels. References Goonetilleke, D.C.R.A. Joseph Conrad's Heart of darkness, London: Taylor & Francis, 2007 Castle, Gregory, The Blackwell guide to literary theory, New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell, 2007 Bloom, Harold, Joseph Conrad's Heart of darkness, New York: InfoBase Publishing, 2008 Conrad, Joseph, Heart of darkness (Plain Label Books, 1975) Murphy, Katharine, Re-reading Pio Baroja and English literature, Peter Lang, 2004 Schneider, Lissa Conrad's narratives of difference: not exactly tales for boy’s, London: Routledge, 2003 Ray, Mohit Joseph Conrad's Heart of darkness New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Dist, 2006 Senn, Werner, Conrad's narrative voice, (Francke, 1980) Read More