Heart Of Darkness Essay Research Paper Emma

Heart Of Darkness Essay, Research Paper

Emma Lothian Heart of Darkness- Long Essay

What all novels have in common is narrative structure. This essay will discuss the relationship between narrative structure, thematic concerns and employment of imagery in Heart of Darkness. With the assistance of textual references, this essay will demonstrate why Joseph Conrad enlists specific textual features to create the foundations of his allegory, upon which he constructs the rest of the plot. Through thorough examination of the stylistic conventions he employs, this essay will depict the purpose Joseph Conrad intended the narrative to convey through its structure and the mechanisms he employed to deliver it.

In traditional English literature, narrative structure was considered one of the most conventional mechanisms for story telling. Stereotypically this format was employed to recount the subject matter of a historical, romantic or ancient epic. Particular thematic elements of Heart of Darkness can be foregrounded to support this reading of the technique: For example, Kurtz’s love for the intended and Marlow’s epic journey of self-discovery.

Though the book contains these basic themes, Conrad allows the thematic concerns to digress, exploring a broader spectrum of linguistic recollection. Free from the conventions of traditional literature, Conrad is able to write retrospectively without restriction; developing a text that can be considered groundbreaking for its time. Because of the experimental nature of Heart of Darkness it has been said by many critics that Joseph Conrad set precedence for the standards, against which the modern perceptions and expectations of narrative structure have been developed and conceived.

In modern times, the methodical device of narrative structure is often appropriated to imaginative literature, for the primary objective of telling a story. It assists the writer in conveying the main themes of the plot by providing the crucial nexus between the reader and the author. In Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad employs narrative structure for the intended purpose of creating specific affects for the reader. He utilizes the technique for the expression of a complex fictional network of thematic concerns, depicted in Heart of Darkness.

One possible reason that Joseph Conrad has selected narrative style, as the means for informing the reader of particular issues through his story, can be correlated with the reader involvement it creates. By employing this technique, Conrad is pursuing a cathartic response from his audience. He does not only want to attract the reader’s attention, but he also wants to stimulate his reader emotionally. He employs narrative structure in Heart of Darkness to allow the reader to observe the thematic content through the eyes of his characters. By this, it is meant that Conrad constructs his characters in such a manner so as to provoke emotional purgation in the text; forcing readers to identify with, or reject individual values, attitudes and beliefs withheld by different characters.

Through the nexus established between the reader and Heart of Darkness, Conrad is able to exploit the narrative framework with the intention of expressing the thematic concerns of the plot. He manipulates the chosen narrative structure, to communicate the dense subject matter of the book. He achieves this by employing a variety of technical conventions and a vast entanglement of interlocking imagery. The complexity of the imagery and the depth of meaning it creates is what sets Heart of Darkness aside from other novels. It is without a doubt an intellectual masterpiece because of the articulate fashion in which the images come together to define the thematic concerns.

Heart of Darkness adopts the thematic concern of self-discovery through the images presented to the reader. The epic journey under taken by Marlow as he travels through the Congo operates allegorically within the narrative, to inform the reader that the circumstances Marlow must face run far deeper than a physical challenge. The imagery directives that indicate such depths of meaning are incorporated as supernatural connotations, like that of “greedy phantoms” (page 98). The construction of the phantom image connotes a mystical ghost like apparition. Such an image indicates that Marlow’s reality is not confined only to tangible presence’s but is also open to suggestion of alternative, possibly supernatural phenomenon. This acknowledgment of spirituality within Marlow deepens existing images of his self-awareness.

Joseph Conrad further reinforces the ideology of supernatural awareness in Heart of Darkness by beguiling the narrative structure to convey connotations through binary oppositions. For example, many references are juxtaposed to compare dark with light. Often these words are replaced with similar descriptions, culminating a similar effect, for example light may be replaced by words like shine, peace, and white, where dark is replaced by black, dull, and violence. These images can be read as allusions to the religious comparison of heaven and hell, or with spiritual understandings of the concept of freedom and entrapment. The juxtaposition of these binary oppositions are made to affirm the thematic image of incongruity and conflict in the text.

Heart of Darkness also employs the advanced technique of framing