Storytelling Suffers with Inability to Abstract in Joseph Conrad s Heart of Darkness

Transcription

1 Storytelling Suffers with Inability to Abstract in Joseph Conrad s Heart of Darkness.She knew. She was sure. I heard her weeping; she had hidden her face in her hands. It seemed to me that the house would collapse before I could escape, that the heavens would fall upon my head. But nothing happened. The heavens do not fall for such a trifle. Would they have fallen, I wonder, if I had rendered Kurtz that justice which was his due? Hadn t he said he wanted only justice? But I couldn t. I could not tell her. It would have been too dark too dark altogether (147) In his novella, Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad uses a narrator named Marlow to depict the discrepancy between ideals and action including the act of storytelling as he recounts his voyage into Africa. In telling his story, Marlow is unable to separate himself from his experience, making abrupt and often seemingly senseless breaks and jumps while simultaneously being all too conscious of the possible judgement from his audience as they listen to his journey into a world where supposed normalcy can only be sustained by the strength of one s character. As Marlow recounts the last scene of his story, in which he returns letters to the girl of the man who he was so obsessively captivated by, Kurtz, he conclusively reveals his internal conflict. In his inability to give justice to Kurtz last words by lying to his girl and indulging her by the idea that those last words were her name, Conrad ultimately proves Marlow to be incapable of separating himself from his own experience because of a refusal within himself to confront his insecurity of being weak and an inability to come to terms with the darkness which he attempts to thrust upon his audience. Marlow s insecurity of being unable to face the darkness which surrounds his story is first objectified in his view towards women. In telling his story, Marlow depicts women as innocent

2 creatures to be protected and enveloped in an illusion of perfect safety. When his aunt describes the perfect justice of the Company s mission in colonizing the ignorant millions (59), Marlow tells his fellow sailors: They live in a world of their own, and there had never been anything like it, and never can be. It is too beautiful altogether, and if they were to set it up it would go to pieces before the first sunset (59). Even if he passively attempts to inform her that the Company was run for profit, Marlow can t stand to truly disillusion this woman of the darker motives for colonization and justifies his passivity by enveloping the whole gender as living under a necessary illusion. Later on after his helmsman has been struck and killed by an arrow and Marlow steps back from his story to disdainfully iterate to his audience that they have no right to judge his apparent absurdity, Marlow suddenly jerks incoherently to the subject of a Kurtz girl and exclaims: I laid the ghost of his gifts at last with a lie [ ] They the women I mean are out of it should be out of it. We must help them to stay in that beautiful world of their own, lest ours gets worse ( ). In reiterating this idea of protecting women from the world of men, Marlow ultimately seems to be lamenting his own disdain for the harshness of the world he faced in Africa. However, at the same time Marlow contradicts this feeling of disdain by forcing upon his audience an unpolished and uninhibited emotional account of this very world. He does though in a seemingly subconscious attempt to defend himself and his own slipping into this absurd darkness. Therefore we see that at the very moments where Marlow is describing the discrepancy between the general population s ignorant beliefs and his own dark feeling, he resorts to a projection of the wonderfully safe world of women as if he wished he belonged. Marlow, however, refuses to disclose to himself this yearning to be ignorant and safe because of a simultaneous reverence for Kurtz and the principles he embodies. Though Marlow seems to become aware of Kurtz s ignorance regarding the humanity of the Africans, he cannot

3 help but admire Kurtz s deliberate belief (91) that saves him from losing his sense of self. Marlow admits to not seeing the so-called conquered monsters (91) as inhuman as his steamer toils along slowly against the dense jungle. He explains, No they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of it this suspicion of their not being inhuman (91). Thus to Marlow it is not the fact that the Africans were human that is the worst but rather the suspicion, the realization of ignorance that plagues him more and consequently the inability to return to such an ignorant yet peaceful state of mind. However, despite his parting from these ignorant though convenient beliefs, Marlow still almost deifies Kurtz for his ability to hold on to what he believes in despite those beliefs being ignorant. Though Marlow describes Kurtz as having taken a high seat amongst the devils of the land I mean literally (108), he then shortly after goes on to lecture his audience, telling them: your strength comes in, the faith in your ability for the digging of unostentatious holes to bury the stuff in your power of devotion, not to yourself, but to an obscure, back-breaking business [ } Mind, I am not trying to excuse or even explain I am trying to account to myself for for Mr. Kurtz for the shade of Mr. Kurtz (109). So, even though Kurtz writes in his report for the Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs to Exterminate all the brutes! (110) and Marlow cries he had no restraint (111), he cannot deny that Kurtz conquered one soul in the world (111) and that being his. Hence, Marlow is conflicted between his longing to return to the naïve world of women, which he sees as harmless ignorance, and the admiration and attachment he has for a man who displays a darker and powerful blindness that allows him to hold firm his own sense of self. This conflict that Marlow faces is finally displayed in his inability to tell Kurtz s fiancé the truth about his last words. His fiancé is the physical embodiment of this incongruity as being a woman though also an attachment and relation to Kurtz himself. At last, Marlow cannot bring himself to corrupt this woman to a darker version of reality by revealing to her the captain s last

4 words were not her name but rather: The horror! The horror! (137). He thus ultimately sides with his own yearning for this innocent ignorance rather than the much darker world that Kurtz represents. However, this decision is not without doubt and grief. He calls his lie to Kurtz s girl a trifle (147), demeaning it and consequently himself as not being worthy or legitimate for impact as the heavens did not fall upon [his] head (147). Marlow then essentially calls his lie an injustice. But to what or who? It is at last an injustice to himself as he finally strips himself away from the world which he so desperately attempts to belong to - that is, the world of Kurtz, of firmness of belief, but also of harshness and absurdness. His desperation, as previously noted, is exemplified in his defense of this other world to his audience. Marlow fails to exhibit the restraint he so cherishes in telling his story to his fellow crewmembers, interrupting his own narrative to defend the moments of absurdity and calling his compatriots out for not having the experience to make any legitimate judgments. In laying bare absurdity, Marlow then interrupts himself and begins to almost attack his crewmen when he exclaims: This is the worst of trying to tell Here you all are, each moored with two good addresses, like a hulk with two anchors, a butcher round one corner, a policeman round another, excellent appetites, and temperature normal you hear normal from year s end to year s end (109). In becoming so defensive of the experience he recounts and relives, Marlow thus seems to resent his crewmembers for not having had to experience the darkness that has not only covered his experience in Africa but has also sprawled across his mind seemingly interminably. In turn, his failure to tell Kurtz s girl the truth about his last words ultimately brings to light the conflict Marlow cannot escape from between resentment for his experience being incomprehensible to others as seen in his defensive towards his crewmates and a longing to return and belong to a world uncorrupted by darkness as illustrated in his denial of the truth to

5 Kurtz s girl. This conflict finally leads to an insecurity and feeling of unworthiness on the part of Marlow as demonstrated by his demeaning of himself and the choice he makes to lie. We see, therefore, that due to the internal conflict experienced by Marlow, he is unable to detach himself from his experience and move forward. His inability to give justice to Kurtz s words proves his attachment to the so-called world of women he so wishes to return to. While in the meantime, his undermining of this decision to safeguard her oblivion as well as his aggressive defense of Kurtz and resentment towards his crewmembers for living safely in the world of society establishes his simultaneous though conflicting desire to be willful despite a darker truth. Either way, Marlow s internal struggle at last inhibits him from belonging to either world, thus stunting his growth as both a character and a narrator. Works Cited Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Charlottesville, Va.: U of Virginia Library, Print.