7- Heart Of Darkness.doc 1s2s6o

Heart of Darkness st

1 impressionist narrative 2

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colonial aspect...

“the fascination of the abomination” – ridiculous for the English reader. English – third language for Conrad, after Polish and French. Homework: impressionism in narrative – defining features You have to find appropriate fragments of the book referring to the narrative strategies listed in “impressionism in narrative” Joseph Conrad and Maddox Ford – both considered impressionists. Life does not narrate, but produce the effect of impression... “we are impressionists” – Maddox. We want to be realistic, but because life does not narrate, it lives in impressions, and therefore the work must work through impressions. These are the techniques or narrative strategies of impressionism.

Conrad, Preface to The Nigger of the Narcissus “ a work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line” -

So, every single word of it is so important. (including James Joyce’s

writing) Modernism and impressionism want to be true to life, and want to be true to art, though they redefine the writing. In HoD, you can find a part which reads like a poem. Some things are important because they sound nice. The aim of novel as the work of art is truth. Not a truth residing in the didactic message, but which underlines every aspect, essence of life itself. -

Aspects of shadows, matter and life include this truth

The artist appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom. Not rationalization, but sensory experience of life. Fiction, if it aspires to be art, appeals to temperament, emotions. It must be like painting, like music, perfect blending of form and substance. In order to be effective, it must appeal primarily to the senses.

It is not clear what happened in the novel, its aim is to leave an impression. To see – to visualize, and also understand. The moment we see, we feel and understand – the understanding comes from the senses. “the aim of art, is obscured by mists” the difficulty of impressionism, it will not be difficult to achieve. Impressionist paintings are blurred (so to see you have to concentrate). What you see comes through an impression. The image is created through an impression. The narration – not transparent. The text becomes difficult, because it tries to reach the truth, by hiding the truth – in impressions. (classical frame narration) The first narrator: homodiegetic, a character in the story, extradiegetic – the narration is in the past. Listening to Marlowe, on Thames, London. They are on J. Nelly – a ship. Then we have a narration within narration – intradiegetic (when a character becomes a narrator in one’s narration), homodiegetic. Marlowe. Speaking about the past. He is in the Sepulchre City – Brussels. And on Kongo River. Everything, form and theme, must inter-connect. Brussels we have – sepulchre city, Heart of Darkness – Kongo, and both are within the frame of narration, which takes place in London. The narration starts at evening – transition from light to darkness. London – light. And darkness is everywhere, it is in us. As the narration proceeds, it is still evening in third person narration here. Africa is within this darkness. The inside narration dominates, when it ends, it is darkness everywhere (night), the second narrative dominates the first. Frame narration suggests the ultimate distance from the truth. – critics do not know who we are analyzing. Apocalypse Now – suggested to watch. We are talking about the Belgian Congo (colonialism, next time) -

Commercial colony, ivory was being brought from there. Country in Central Africa, gains independence in? The name of the country today and then (a question: po co Brytyjczykom Falklandy, mamy obowiązek znać wszystkie kolonie Brytyjskie)

The statement: Belgian colonization is bad, and British is good. Conrad. The aim of the frame narrative is to create a narration which is not transparent. If we look at the first person narrator, there is a fragment when he defines the type of stories that seamen tell. “The yarns [tales] of seamen have a direct simplicity...” “But Marlow was not typical”

In the case of typical seamen story, the truth is within the nut, we open it and find the truth. Typical yarn. In Marlow’s story, the meaning is not in the centre, but in the shell, crust, everywhere. “The horror, the horror” – these words of Kurtz are not a kernel, just a shell. The truth is in not what is seen, but how is seen. – the impressionism. “the biggest, and the greatest, town on earth” – imperialism, Conrad creates the imperialism, when speaking of London. The first paragraphs: the colour red: and some light, but we do not see clearly, due to the mist and haze, and the evening approaching. Impressionistic technique – lightshade technique. Desaturated colours – red and white, so it is an impression of colours, not the colours themselves. Everything is blurred. When the first narrator describes the way Marlow narrates, “it brings out haze and misty hallows” – because it is blurred. White, darkness, black... – the colours predominant in the book. “like, seemed to” – he does not define things as they are, but as comparing them through. This can suggest that this is an impression. He describes his assumptions about how it was likely to look like. Repetition also enhances impression... this is another sth. When you read this text, you have to find all adverbs and adjectives, and every phrase that is repeated. Particularly in the description of the jungle. First person narrator uses “mournful, brooding, gloomy, motionless” – and the same is in the description of the jungle. It connects Africa and London, Britain. But, it is unlikely that two men would be using the same words – used for an aesthetic effect. This repetition is contrived. More important than credibility is the truth in the impression of the evening and Africa. Both are similar, because in both places it is getting dark. The impression of disappearance of light. What is dark: Mournful, gloomy, motionless – disappearance of light, darkness. Personification – mournful gloom. Silent jungle. This is a way of conveying impression. Truth is located not in experience, but in impression of that experience, but in the story it resides in the act of the narration itself. If the meaning is located in what is being narrated, the meaning must be relocated to the language. Find every fragment in which Marlow speaks about language. arlow is using mythology to describe a state in which he found himself when entering the company office (fate spinners, parki) – the atmosphere of the office.

When he sees these women, completely indifferent to what he is doing, still spinning, waving some fabric. “watching a coast as it slips past the ship is like watching an enigma” – he is telling that he will not be able to describe it. “I watched the coast” – “there it is before you, smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, always mute with an air of whispering” – coast is described in categories of personification. There is a problem with this description, through impression – a list of adjectives, adverbs, list of words. whenever you use a list, adverbs, nouns etc, it shows the problem of language. The first novel to see the problem of language. The more words you use, the less adequate the language. A failure of the language to capture the impression. He describes the emotions, language is connected with the emotions felt at that time. Marlow often interrupts, saying, “perhaps, maybe, I am not sure”, using similes, metaphors, biblical symbolism, this points to the deficiency of language. “he was just a word for me, I did not see the man in the name any more than you do” find the fragment, – about Kurtz. He knows Kurtz through a word. First, he hears about Kurtz. And he did not see the man in the word. And they are listening to his story. they are looking for Marlow in the narration, he is looking for Kurtz. We are looking for.. what for? Language is sth which does not allow us to get to... “Do you see him, do you see the story, do you see anything?” – what is happening? “waiting for some clue from lips, narrative seems to be shaping itself without the narrator” Marlow, for whom Kurtz emerges as a voice (and then he meets him), Marlow becomes a voice (first he is a person, becomes a voice). For the end, Marlow says: it was only the voice. Because “the horror, the horror” remains. When Kurtz says so, it is evening in the story, and the candlelight is blown by Marlow. His narrative might create the same veil, impenetrable for those that were listening to him, as the language did for him. We have the first person narration within the narration, and within this narration just “horror, horror” We will never see the person behind the first narrator, because Marlow disappears completely. It is the language. “seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness” – all interpretations of this novel, colonial, psychological, are against the premise of this novel. Another question: find contexts for light and darkness, what does this mean in context of Intended, language etc. When you read Joyce, first: notice what is reappearing, repeated. Senses. Birds. Dublin, devil, hell, wings, flying, Icarus, women, some are described with the same words... the plot, he wants to flee from Ireland.

Belgian Congo in 1960 became - ? Democratic Republic of the Congo Why do we have two narrators? The first narrator does not know the story, we begin with the evening, and through Marlowe’s narrative it is interrupted “do you see the story, do you see anything”? do you understand? “it has become pitch dark” The first narrator is the addressee of “do you see the story”? Marlow says – inability of the first narrator to understand – the failure of words to convey the truth. The kernel is in the how (way of speaking), not in what.

When we see sth from a perspective, distance implies removal from truth, so paradoxically even though we see better, we do not get the truth. Kurtz is a mosaic of words. people say things about him and it creates the character. Between us and the meaning of the story we have three obstacles, and it is the how. The first narrator does not understand Marlow, Marlow does not understand Kurtz, and Kurtz is a mystery in its own right. Reading it as the process of unveiling, but in this case it reveals another process of unveiling.