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Abstract: Conrad’s novel involves a great deal of different authorial and personal narrators, which are not only expensive, but often surprising and paradoxical as well. Heart of Darkness is a case in point. It is a way to suggest that the exceptional thematic complication of Heart of Darkness is partly dependent on the different degrees of perception shown by the novella’s narrators.
Key words: narrator paradoxical Heart of Darkness
【中圖分类号】G40-02 【文献标识码】A【文章编号】1009-9646(2008)09(b)-0210-02
The narrator or the combination of narrators is the author’s fundamental means of presenting and developing his text, which is made up through the different activities and functions the narrator is made to perform.
Authorial and personal narrators are mentioned in this discussion. The basic formal criterion here is the grammatical one of pronominal reference: third-person personal pronouns signify an authorial narrator, first-person pronouns a personal narrator.
Conrad’s novel, which involves a great deal of different authorial and personal narrators, in general sense serves to confirm the efficacy of this critical distinction. We can see that Conrad’s fictional works are most fond of the relationships between authorial and personal narrative. The narrative and thematic effects that happen afterwards from the complicated manner in which these relationships are combined are not only expensive, but often surprising and paradoxical as well. Heart of Darkness is a case in point.
And indeed nothing is easier for a man who has, as the phrase goes, ‘followed the sea’ with reverence and affection, than to evoke the great spirit of the past upon the lower reaches of Thames. The tidal current runs to and fro in its unceasing service, crowded with memories of men and ships it had borne to the rest of home or to the battles of the sea. It had known and served all the men of whom the nation is proud, from Sir Francis Drake to Sir John Franklin, knights all, titled and untitled—the great knights—errant of the sea…. The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empires (Conrad 2001: 5).
The personal narrator patriotically looks back upon the great British sailors, from the 16th century Sir Francis Drake to the 19th century Sir John Franklin, who navigated this river in old days. His ponderings are filled with satisfaction and nationalistic pride: these heroes, he believes, are bearers of a spark from the sacred fire (5) of English civilization. The narrator shows us an optimism that was representative of the Victorians: he thinks civilization (particularly British civilization) is going to bring about steady improvement to the world. It was widely accepted in the 19th century that scientific and technological progress would ultimately change the world into a paradise. We can sense something of this attitude in our narrator’s enthusiastic tone. We never learn much about these men respectively, but Conrad may have chosen them to be typical Victorian bourgeoisie—the optimistic class to whom Marlow’s warning tale will be mostly given account of. These people believed conceitedly that enlightenment would overcome backwardness; that light in enlightenment would be sure to conquer the darkness of ignorance and superstition. Then:
The sun set; the dusk fell on the steam, and lights began to appear along the shore. The Chapman lighthouse, a three-legged thing erect on a mud-flat, shone strongly. Lights of ships moved in the fairway—a great stir of lights going up and going down. And farther west on the upper reaches the place of the monstrous town was still marked ominously on the sky, a brooding gloom in sunshine, a lurid glare under the stars.
‘And this also,’ said Marlow suddenly, ‘has been one of the dark places of the earth’ (Conrad 2001: 5-6).
This opening description of the setting by the personal narrator calls for deep thought and yet is extremely careful and precise in design. Jakob Lothe (1989: 25) thinks this narrative contrast is one of the most effective in all of Conrad’s writings. Marlow’s quiet remark not only shows the relative na?vety and limited insight of the personal narrator, but also forecasts the sophisticated, gloomy implication of the story he is going to tell. Marlow’s comment prefigures his following thoughts and feeling on the arrival of the Romans in Britain nineteen hundred years ago (Conrad 2001: 7). What’s more, his introductory comment functions as a complicate forecast of darkness, the central metaphor in the text. But darkness was here yesterday (7), Marlow remarks as he starts his tale. When the reader has finished reading his narration, he or she tends to conclude that darkness is still here today, although in an indirect way. Marlow’s story produces its impact on the personal narrator, at least. Now his mind is filled with darkness. The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed somber under an overcast sky—seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness (110).
A main feature of Conrad’s narrative method lies in the fact that the narrators can not only complement but also contradict one another, so that the combined effect becomes more paradoxical, ironic, and complicated.
Two aspects show the personal narrator is likely to reveal more understanding and perception here. On the one hand, his introduction to Marlow is far from assuring the difference between the limited insight of the personal narrator and Marlow’s comment, later his acknowledgement of limited knowledge mostly possibly implies some wisdom. On the other hand, what the passage really wants to inform us lies in not only about the narrative and thematic characteristics of the yarn we are going to hear, but also about the personal narrator’s surprise to understand Marlow’s presentation of it. This relative insight makes the story more reliable, and it is indispensable to assure the narrative and thematic effects of Marlow’s narrative. Its structure being a tool used by narrators or witnesses affirms the narrative effect, then again increases the moral complication of the tale and reader’s involvement in it.
Let’s focus on the role of the narrators to embody the themes in Heart of Darkness. Through the opening prologue of relaxed and yet convincing argument, the personal narrator first gives the low-keyed description of the Nellie’s coming to anchor, with the five men aboard feeling at ease to wait for the ebb of the tide; he slowly concentrated his attention on the gathering gloom and what it suggests. The light in the sky and the luminous estuary form a sharp contrast with the darkness along the banks of the Thames and over London. But the profound calmness of the sky just before the sun disappears under the horizon indicates the seaward reaches of the Thames; and the men on the Nellie seems united by a common spiritual bond ,when they recollects the countless voyagers who departed from the Thames.
At this very moment our attention has been warned against supposing the conventional notion: black as bad and white as good. This interaction goes on when the sun finally sets, lights appear on the shore, and Marlow jumps out of the narrative frame: ‘And this also,’ said Marlow suddenly, ‘has been one of the darkness places of the earth (Conrad 2001:6).’
Distinctively, Marlow’s opening remark not only is on the opposite but also broadens the way of general meditation: Marlow is pondering, not over the light of British civilization, but over the darkness caused by its colonization; the historical perspective becomes much longer when Marlow comments on the first Roman settlers on the Thames in very old time. The author gives it wide coverage to make us see civilization is not as the established norm, but as a brief interruption of the normal order of the darkness, insignificance as a flash of lightning in the cloud (7).
In a word, the personal narrator’s opening remarks show a more unproblematic concern than Marlow’s comment. This is a way to suggest that the exceptional thematic complication of Heart of Darkness is partly dependent on the different degrees of perception shown by the novella’s narrators (Lothe, 1989).
Bibliography
[1] Lothe, J. 1989. Conrad’s Narrative Method. Clarendon Press. Oxford.
[2] Stanzel, Franz K. 1986. A Theory of Narrative. Cambridge: CUP.
[3] Zhang, H. (Compile and Explain). 2001. Heart of Darkness. Joseph Conrad. Shanghai.Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press. (張和龙注译 约瑟夫.康拉德著《黑暗的心灵》上海外语教育出版社).
Key words: narrator paradoxical Heart of Darkness
【中圖分类号】G40-02 【文献标识码】A【文章编号】1009-9646(2008)09(b)-0210-02
The narrator or the combination of narrators is the author’s fundamental means of presenting and developing his text, which is made up through the different activities and functions the narrator is made to perform.
Authorial and personal narrators are mentioned in this discussion. The basic formal criterion here is the grammatical one of pronominal reference: third-person personal pronouns signify an authorial narrator, first-person pronouns a personal narrator.
Conrad’s novel, which involves a great deal of different authorial and personal narrators, in general sense serves to confirm the efficacy of this critical distinction. We can see that Conrad’s fictional works are most fond of the relationships between authorial and personal narrative. The narrative and thematic effects that happen afterwards from the complicated manner in which these relationships are combined are not only expensive, but often surprising and paradoxical as well. Heart of Darkness is a case in point.
And indeed nothing is easier for a man who has, as the phrase goes, ‘followed the sea’ with reverence and affection, than to evoke the great spirit of the past upon the lower reaches of Thames. The tidal current runs to and fro in its unceasing service, crowded with memories of men and ships it had borne to the rest of home or to the battles of the sea. It had known and served all the men of whom the nation is proud, from Sir Francis Drake to Sir John Franklin, knights all, titled and untitled—the great knights—errant of the sea…. The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empires (Conrad 2001: 5).
The personal narrator patriotically looks back upon the great British sailors, from the 16th century Sir Francis Drake to the 19th century Sir John Franklin, who navigated this river in old days. His ponderings are filled with satisfaction and nationalistic pride: these heroes, he believes, are bearers of a spark from the sacred fire (5) of English civilization. The narrator shows us an optimism that was representative of the Victorians: he thinks civilization (particularly British civilization) is going to bring about steady improvement to the world. It was widely accepted in the 19th century that scientific and technological progress would ultimately change the world into a paradise. We can sense something of this attitude in our narrator’s enthusiastic tone. We never learn much about these men respectively, but Conrad may have chosen them to be typical Victorian bourgeoisie—the optimistic class to whom Marlow’s warning tale will be mostly given account of. These people believed conceitedly that enlightenment would overcome backwardness; that light in enlightenment would be sure to conquer the darkness of ignorance and superstition. Then:
The sun set; the dusk fell on the steam, and lights began to appear along the shore. The Chapman lighthouse, a three-legged thing erect on a mud-flat, shone strongly. Lights of ships moved in the fairway—a great stir of lights going up and going down. And farther west on the upper reaches the place of the monstrous town was still marked ominously on the sky, a brooding gloom in sunshine, a lurid glare under the stars.
‘And this also,’ said Marlow suddenly, ‘has been one of the dark places of the earth’ (Conrad 2001: 5-6).
This opening description of the setting by the personal narrator calls for deep thought and yet is extremely careful and precise in design. Jakob Lothe (1989: 25) thinks this narrative contrast is one of the most effective in all of Conrad’s writings. Marlow’s quiet remark not only shows the relative na?vety and limited insight of the personal narrator, but also forecasts the sophisticated, gloomy implication of the story he is going to tell. Marlow’s comment prefigures his following thoughts and feeling on the arrival of the Romans in Britain nineteen hundred years ago (Conrad 2001: 7). What’s more, his introductory comment functions as a complicate forecast of darkness, the central metaphor in the text. But darkness was here yesterday (7), Marlow remarks as he starts his tale. When the reader has finished reading his narration, he or she tends to conclude that darkness is still here today, although in an indirect way. Marlow’s story produces its impact on the personal narrator, at least. Now his mind is filled with darkness. The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed somber under an overcast sky—seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness (110).
A main feature of Conrad’s narrative method lies in the fact that the narrators can not only complement but also contradict one another, so that the combined effect becomes more paradoxical, ironic, and complicated.
Two aspects show the personal narrator is likely to reveal more understanding and perception here. On the one hand, his introduction to Marlow is far from assuring the difference between the limited insight of the personal narrator and Marlow’s comment, later his acknowledgement of limited knowledge mostly possibly implies some wisdom. On the other hand, what the passage really wants to inform us lies in not only about the narrative and thematic characteristics of the yarn we are going to hear, but also about the personal narrator’s surprise to understand Marlow’s presentation of it. This relative insight makes the story more reliable, and it is indispensable to assure the narrative and thematic effects of Marlow’s narrative. Its structure being a tool used by narrators or witnesses affirms the narrative effect, then again increases the moral complication of the tale and reader’s involvement in it.
Let’s focus on the role of the narrators to embody the themes in Heart of Darkness. Through the opening prologue of relaxed and yet convincing argument, the personal narrator first gives the low-keyed description of the Nellie’s coming to anchor, with the five men aboard feeling at ease to wait for the ebb of the tide; he slowly concentrated his attention on the gathering gloom and what it suggests. The light in the sky and the luminous estuary form a sharp contrast with the darkness along the banks of the Thames and over London. But the profound calmness of the sky just before the sun disappears under the horizon indicates the seaward reaches of the Thames; and the men on the Nellie seems united by a common spiritual bond ,when they recollects the countless voyagers who departed from the Thames.
At this very moment our attention has been warned against supposing the conventional notion: black as bad and white as good. This interaction goes on when the sun finally sets, lights appear on the shore, and Marlow jumps out of the narrative frame: ‘And this also,’ said Marlow suddenly, ‘has been one of the darkness places of the earth (Conrad 2001:6).’
Distinctively, Marlow’s opening remark not only is on the opposite but also broadens the way of general meditation: Marlow is pondering, not over the light of British civilization, but over the darkness caused by its colonization; the historical perspective becomes much longer when Marlow comments on the first Roman settlers on the Thames in very old time. The author gives it wide coverage to make us see civilization is not as the established norm, but as a brief interruption of the normal order of the darkness, insignificance as a flash of lightning in the cloud (7).
In a word, the personal narrator’s opening remarks show a more unproblematic concern than Marlow’s comment. This is a way to suggest that the exceptional thematic complication of Heart of Darkness is partly dependent on the different degrees of perception shown by the novella’s narrators (Lothe, 1989).
Bibliography
[1] Lothe, J. 1989. Conrad’s Narrative Method. Clarendon Press. Oxford.
[2] Stanzel, Franz K. 1986. A Theory of Narrative. Cambridge: CUP.
[3] Zhang, H. (Compile and Explain). 2001. Heart of Darkness. Joseph Conrad. Shanghai.Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press. (張和龙注译 约瑟夫.康拉德著《黑暗的心灵》上海外语教育出版社).