To the Lighthouse and Heart of Darkness - Essay Example

The ideas of time and form that are talked of in these novels reveal what the age felt about them. An era of change, the modernist period thought of radical changes that had come about in the perceptions of time. These changes were articulated through methods such as the stream of consciousness technique that was popularised by other modernists such as James Joyce. While Heart of Darkness is not written completely in the mode of stream of consciousness, it does have elements of it. The protagonist Kurtz talks of what he feels at different points in the novel and the different sights that he sees.

The transitions from one thought or sight to the other are not smooth. These transitions have been compared to the winding nature of the Congo River through which the expedition that Kurtz leads passes. These transitions also give insights into what the protagonist feels at a certain point of time, much in the way other modernist novels did. The action that happens in novels that follow the stream of consciousness technique is minimal and this is so in Heart of Darkness as well. Woolf’s To the Lighthouse too talks of how life is formed of different perceptions that are then articulated by the novelist as points of experience in the consciousness of the characters of the novel.

The Ramsays and their children articulate their thoughts through this method. The absence of an omniscient narrator in most part of the novel leads the individual narratives to gain equal prominence. The method of stream of consciousness leads to no narrative being privileged over the other in a relentless quest for objectivity. Conrad too seeks this through methods that condense time and present human subjectivities interacting with each other. The novelist in either case is engaged in a quest for objectivity.

Internal monologues on the part of the characters of the novels are also a part of the methods that are used to condense time. There are long passages in either novel where scenes are described without any action taking place. Woolf and Conrad both believed that conventional definitions of action were inadequate to describe the reality of people. Hence the war occupies very little space in Woolf’s novel while the mental action that is a consequence of it is dealt with at great length. While imperial wars are not mentioned in Heart of Darkness, Conrad does make references to the changes in the psyche of the coloniser as a result of interaction with the subject.

Action happens in the mind in both these novels and thus, time too is provided a different definition. These changes in the psyches of characters are articulated through monologues on the part of the characters that talk of their mental states. The novelists draw attention to the fact that people spend a large part of their lives thinking and that this process of thought is often accompanied by a great deal of confusion. It is this confusion that Conrad and Woolf seek to portray through their novels.

After a winding and long journey, Conrad’s and Woolf’s characters reach their destination. What awaits them however, is not fulfilment but a sense of dissatisfaction. In the world of modernist novels, satisfaction is always deferred. The monologues of the characters seek to articulate this deferment. Language is not however,