Modernism in Herart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness was published in the Late Victorian-Early Modern Era but exhibits mostly modern traits:
a distrust of abstractions as a way of delineating truth
an interest in an exploration of the psychological
a belief in art as a separate and somewhat privileged kind of human experience
a desire for transcendence mingled with a feeling that transcendence cannot be achieved
an awareness of primitiveness and savagery as the condition upon which civilization is built, and therefore an interest in the experience and expressions of non-European peoples
a skepticism that emerges from the notion that human ideas about the world seldom fit the complexity of the world itself, and thus a sense that multiplicity, ambiguity, and irony--in life and in art--are the necessary responses of the intelligent mind to the human condition.
.Also chech here :
http://modernism.research.yale.edu/w...rt_of_Darkness
Modernist Language and Structure in "The Heart of Darkness"
Modernist influences of the use of language and structure in Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness."
Modernists had a suspicion of language, believing that words lacked the ability to convey messages due to the expansion of the human experience and the individualized interpretation of meaning. Author Joseph Conrad’s experimental use of language in his novella The Heart of Darkness reveals the struggle to encompass the meaning of the arbitrary connection of words and symbols.
Though a story about colonized Africa and the feral nature that lies beneath civilized veneer, Heart of Darkness is an examination of literature’s deficit in the ability of the author to express precise meaning through language and grammatical structure. Conrad playful and articulately expresses this deficit as he treks the reader through the darkness in his classic tale of a man’s journey into the recess of the human psyche.
Semiotics in the Language of Joseph Conrad
Conrad expresses the meaning of language in a way that emulates the beliefs of linguist Ferdinand de Saussure in that he explores the relationship between language and meaning in his construction of literature. According to Saussure, signs—meaning both words and punctuation in the context of literature—are defined not in themselves but in the difference found in relation to other signs. The connection of words and punctuation is arbitrary in itself because the meaning comes from the interpreter of those connections.
The social construction of language relies on the interpreter and the individual experiences that complete the definition of language. Conrad, like Saussure, was concerned with “the way language was made to function by people, and the way that it made people function” in the “utterance of an individual” and the “commonality or generality of language” (Childs 72). This concern is evident in narrative of Heart of Darkness.
Structure of Heart of Darkness
Conrad sets the narrative in a frame story with two distinct—yet often confusable—storytellers who exemplify the inability of the author to encompass meaning through language. The frame narrator, an unnamed sailor, represents the basic and denotative meaning of language, while the main narrator, Marlow, represents the interpretive nature of language.
The separation of these two narrators is most notable when the sailor introduces Marlow and begins to tell Marlow’s tale. He states, “to him the meaning of the episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought out only as a glow brings out the haze” (Conrad 5). The sailor suggestion that Marlow’s stories are shells that illuminate the meaning of an event indicates that Marlow holds the key to a deeper interpretation of the story yet is unable to completely dispel the ‘haze’ of definition and meaning given the limitations of language.
This exploration is also evident in the playful usage of punctuation and sentence structure in Heart of Darkness. Conrad uses fragments, semicolons, ellipses, and dashes in ways that suggest the inability to convey the complete and universal interpretation of language by the author and the reader. One particular fragment deals with Marlow attempting to explain the existence of sound that occasionally pierced the silence of the night: “Perhaps on some quite night a tremor of far-off drums, sinking, swelling, a tremor vast, faint; a sound weird appealing, suggestive and wild—and perhaps with the profound meaning as the sound of bells in a Christian church” (Conrad 20).
Conrad uses this sort of structure to examine the varied definition of words since a single word or a pairing of words can not convey the levels of interpretation needed to define the experience. This sort of structure exemplifies Saussure’s notion of signs an arbitrary connections because Conrad uses structure to build upon the reader’s ability to interpret a specific meaning by providing levels of difference within the words themselves. Similar structures can be found on each page of the text, and the reader is left with layered explanations as if a singular statement lacked the capability of complete expression.
Language Use in Conrad's Novel
Conrad uses repetition of the words black, blackness, darkness, shadow, and tenebrous to describe Africa and its people. Though seemingly the same in definition, each word is meant to build upon the experiences of the reader and allow for interpretation of the words, thus creating a broader image inside the constraints of language. His word choices indicate language that questions itself in its abilities to encompass definition, yet is confident in its ability for interpretation by the reader. The confines of language exist in the reader, not the words themselves.
Conrad also hints at the limitations of language by proving the reader with opportunities to witness the narrators’ inability to express themselves or to understand the words of others. This is particularly interesting because it shows the narrators and the readers and interpreters of language.
The first example is when Marlow tells the story of a doctor who wished to measure his head before he went on the boat. The doctor makes a statement which he credits to Plato; however, it is not one belonging to Plato, a fact to which Marlow takes no note. Marlow’s inability to interpret and understand the implications of such an error, suggest that the connection between the misquoted saying and the false originator are arbitrary; therefore, making the connection between author and text less significant than that between reader and the text. This can also be said about the connection between the speaker and the receiver.
Another example of this is the inability of Marlow to understand the language of the African tribe. The most profound moment is when Kurtz’s native mistress stood with a group of people calling out to Kurtz as he lay dying. Their words are described as “articulate, breathless utterances” which cannot be understood by Marlow, but could be understood by Kurtz—or so the reader assumes. Kurtz’s reply to Marlow’s questions as to what the words meant was to smile. Conrad points out that this was a smile of understanding the hidden meaning in words. Marlow states, “He made no answer, but I saw a smile, a smile of indefinable meaning, appear on his colorless mouth” in way that suggest Kurtz had discovered the secret codex that provided him the ability to understand language on a higher level than Marlow (Conrad 67).
This is in itself interesting because Kurtz has become less ‘civilized’ but more capable of understanding and expressing language than either of the two narrators. He seems to transcend language because he is able t interpret its signs and symbols at a core level. Kurtz reflects the narrator and the interpreter since it is through him that Marlow and the sailor are able to see the limitations of language.
Joseph Conrad wrote Heart of Darkness in a way that is playful and experimental in the use if language and punctuations. He seems conscious of the fact that language is in itself incapable of encompassing definition because it lacks the interpretation and social construct of the reader. His work fits into the idea of the Modernist that language should be held in suspicion of its lack. The reader is responsible for constructing literature through interaction with the text and not merely reading the words of the author. Language is arbitrary without context. In Heart of Darkness, the context is the darkest regions of the human existence, and it compels the reader to experience the darkness through connection with the text.
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