Transforming Ancient Mode of Projection

Transforming Ancient Mode of Projection

Conrad uses description in a different way than Hardy because he lets the reader create the setting within their mind. In Heart of Darkness, “a first narrator introduces Marlow and [has] the last word after Marlow [falls] silent”(Jordan 68). Within the novel it becomes possible to “transform [the] ancient mode of projection into an epistemological perception, where it is not so much the African object as the African subject the explorer, the writer who is called into question”(88). Throughout the novel, “everything must eventually be recovered on the plane of narrating, in the act of telling which itself attempts to recover the problematic relations of Marlow’s narrative plot to his story, and of his plot and story to Kurtz’s story…what Marlow understands to be Kurtz’s story”(68). Also, light and dark imagery is used to develop theme that goes along with the ambiguousness of the title. “There is the heart of darkness in which the narrator (Marlow) tells his story. There is also the heart of the great continent into which Marlow journeys…One important part of this aspect of Conrad’s theme is the narrator’s journey toward the darkness of savagery”(Dowden 71). Conrad uses Marlow as a device for the reader to gain insight while Marlow gains insight through partial involvement in Kurtz’s story. At the same time, the use of Marlow’s audience is a unique tool Conrad employs in order to complete the framework of his narrative(84). Furthermore, Conrad’s symbolism within the river is complex. “The river bears the voyagers out of the heart of darkness faster than it bore them in, and the life of Kurtz, whom Marlow is taking out, seems to ebb as fast as the stream”(80). In conclusion, Conrad’s novel “is a self-conscious meditation on misunderstanding, and its self consciousness is what places it at a highly significant crossroads between an old and new mode of African expression”(Jordan 88). As much as Conrad and Hardy are different, there are some similarities between...

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