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Point of View Manipulating Readers in Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

The effects of point of view


Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, deals with contentious issues of racism and the questionable validity of policies of colonisation employed by European nations during the nineteenth century. In the portrayal of these sensitive issues, Conrad employs a unique narrative point of view in order to manipulate the reader?s response to characters, situations, conflicts and issues. The different levels of narration, from the anonymous frame narrator, the first person narration of the protagonist Marlowe, and the limited periods of other first person narrations from the minor characters, at different times add to and contradict the alternative narrations. Through this continual contrast, readers are manipulated and forced to question their own attitudes towards colonisation.

The majority of the text is narrated in first person by the character Charles Marlowe. Because of this first person narration, readers are positioned to sympathise with his viewpoints, as the only character for which readers are provided both an exterior and interior. The exterior of Marlowe, how he is perceived by other characters, is provided by the anonymous frame narrator in the opening pages of the novella:

He had sunken cheeks, a yellow complexion, a straight back, an ascetic aspect, and, with his arms dropped, the palms of his hands outwards, resembled an idol. (p16)

This is then combined with his own narration, which gives readers an insight into his character?s inner thoughts and motivations, his interior. As the two sides of Marlowe are combined in a complete reading of the text, links can be made between Marlowe?s emotional development and inner journey through the ?darkness?, and the way his character appears externally. The contrasting of these two sides of Marlowe also has ironic implications, as though the frame narrator is led to perceive him as a ??Buddah??, the only enlightenment he has found is one of darkness. In fact, little enlightenment at all, as the novella never effects an adequate closure, posing more questions than answers at its conclusion. As Marlowe is the only character in the text for whom both an exterior and interior character is provided, he subsequently seems the most real and readers are manipulated to sympathise with his viewpoint. Readers trace his ideological development as it corresponds with a manipulation of their own attitudes and values. This can be seen in Marlowe?s view towards women in the text. It is after speaking to his aunt that Marlowe first makes the statement:

It?s queer how out of touch with truth women are. (p28)

At first, this seems a rather disconnected comment, yet first person narration allows Marlowe to explain this comment aside from the action of the text. As readers trace Marlowe?s physical journey, a move away from Europe to Africa, a similar move can be seen in the text away from female characters to a purely male cast. Women are therefore associated with the supposedly civilised and refined world left behind in Europe, a world ignorant of the evils of colonisation, which are to be discovered in Africa. Readers are led through the ?darkness?, and as events become more extreme, so does the longing to return to the simpler stages of novella?s opening. Readers are even manipulated into a consciousness of this desire when Marlowe confuses his own narration and combines his meeting with Kurtz with the meeting of Kurtz? Intended in Europe (p81). By then, though she is actively marginalised and made ??out of it?? by Marlowe. Readers have reached the same understanding as Marlowe, that her world of untouched Europe must not be spoilt by the ?darkness? of what the European people have done, if Marlowe is to keep his sanity and any sense of hope. As revealed in the novella?s conclusion, to combine these two worlds ??would have been too dark?? (p123). It is through the text?s unique narrative point of view that readers are manipulated in their attitudes towards the character of Marlowe, and the contrasting situations of untouched Europe and Africa, tainted with colonisation.

The focus of Heart of Darkness is undoubtedly the character Kurtz. However, reader understandings of Kurtz are greatly manipulated by the fact that he never presents his own character. Instead, information about him must be gleaned from the narrations of other characters. All characterisation of Kurtz is therefore his exterior character, projected in different ways by the narrations of minor characters (each with their own hidden motivations), through the storytelling of Marlowe and the listening ear of the frame narrator. This almost excessive level of separation between reader and character allows readers the distance to reflect objectively on Kurtz? actions and the enterprise of colonisation which they represent. Readers are overtly manipulated through a series of different Kurtz exteriors in order to generate a level of understanding of the character. Kurtz is first introduced to Marlowe and readers by the African clerk, who describes him as ??a very remarkable person?? (p37). This minor narrator is the stereotyped Uncle Tom, a character having little respect within both white and black society. Therefore, the assumed white readership of the text does not immediately accept this summation of Kurtz, yet they are led to through its repetition, a catalogue of Kurtz? praise created in the first chapter of the novella. However this is in stark contrast to the descriptions of Kurtz given in secret conversation by the manager and his nephew in chapter two, of a ??pestilential fellow?? (p57). Readers become aware of the fact that different narrators have different motivations for their descriptions of Kurtz, in the specific situation, the manager?s jealousy and professional ambition. What is more, it is realised that no information is provided about Kurtz? inner motives:

They were at a loss for an adequate motive. (p57)

Though this breeds curiosity both in Marlowe and readers, it also ensures that Kurtz can never become a fully constructed character, thereby all but preventing any resistant readings that may attempt sympathy for Kurtz. Readers are never given the opportunity to sympathise with the personification of colonisation, as he is only ever an exterior character. In the novella?s final chapter, the glorious image of Kurtz from chapter one is confronted with the harsh reality of Kurtz? madness, a contrast made clear through the minor narration of the Russian:

?Nevertheless, I think Mr Kurtz is a remarkable man,? I said with emphasis. He started, dropped on me a cold heavy glance, said very quietly, ?He was,? and turned his back on me. (p101)

This is the final external description of Kurtz before readers are forced into an awareness of him in his madness. Unfortunately, the Russian provides no insights into Kurtz? inner character and he remains without motivation. On his deathbed, his ramblings are left unexplained to readers. Marlowe poses the burning question in readers? minds to receive a futile response:

?Do you know what you are doing?? I whispered. ?Perfectly,? he answered?. (p106)

No explanation or justification is ever provided for the actions of neither Kurtz nor the colonisation he embodies. Though readers are made aware of the fact that there is a redeeming ?idea? behind the policy, it is never explicitly expressed in the text. This manipulates readers into an adverse view of colonisation. The final descriptions of Kurtz provided by his Intended are known by readers to be a totally unrealistic image of the ?pestilence?. They act to show readers the falsehood of any glorification of colonisation governments give to their citizens. In the end, though Kurtz? suffering and ??horror?.? are acknowledged, they remain unexplained. The ambiguous nature of his last words, as it is unsure if the horror is Africa, colonisation, or humanity in general, reflect the lack of understanding provided by the text about Kurtz. Throughout Heart of Darkness readers are manipulated by contrasting points of view, into a vision of Kurtz and colonisation, already decided by Conrad.

A source of contrast with Marlowe?s dominant narration is the anonymous frame narrator. While all other narrators in the text are given clear character outlines, the frame narrator is an unknown while not being omniscient. Both the frame narrator and Marlowe come from the dominant European discourse, however there is a sense of antithesis in their different attitudes towards colonisation and imperialism. The text opens with the frame narrator?s description of the glory of Europe. The European colonisers are described as ??the great knights-errant of the sea?? (p17) and are combined with light images of fire and a ??spark??. However, these are immediately juxta positioned with Marlowe?s opening statement:

?And this also,? said Marlowe suddenly, ?has been one of the dark places of the earth.? (p18)

The following negative descriptions of the Roman colonisation and imperialism which spawned Europe, combined with the above dark imagery, is a mirror image of the descriptions of the frame narrator. It serves to heighten the contrast and creates an immediate conflict of opinions in the text. Considering the condensed structure of the novella, it is crucial the Conrad uses such stark methods to make readers immediately aware of the issue of the text. This issue being a weighing up of the effects of colonisation with the aim of leading readers to a personal rather than a textual judgement of the policy. The frame narrator is also used at various points in the text to interrupt the narrative flow of Marlowe and focus the discussion on the issue of colonisation. This is done on page 60, where the frame narrator interrupts Marlowe as he begins to digress away from the forward movement of the textual journey. In interrupting, it leads Marlowe to a discussion of cannibals. The presence of cannibalism in the text works to undermine any notions that the superior European culture needs to teach the Africans how to be civilised. In Heart of Darkness it is the cannibals who are the more constrained and civilised, especially when juxta positioned against the ??white, flabby?? European pilgrims, who seem the more irrational and uncivilised in their response to situations. It is the presence of the frame narrator, which focuses the text on this issue, which underpins colonisation. Using an anonymous frame narrator, Conrad keeps a strict focus on the major issues of the text, thereby monitoring the ways in which it is presented to readers.

The final function of the unique narrative structure of Heart of Darkness is that it dictates the overriding message of the text. Because of the extreme similarities between events in Marlowe?s constructed life and Conrad?s own experiences, there is a danger that readers may fall subject to the intentional fallacy and dismiss the work as autobiographical. Conrad guards against this with his many levels of constructed narration. The character that could be most reasonably attributed to Conrad would be the frame narrator, yet he is most distant from the events of the plot that it becomes unreasonable to draw links between the anonymous narrator and the detailed events. Conrad is thrice separated from the story?s focus on Kurtz, a separation through the frame narrator, Marlowe and the minor narrator?s. Readers are thereby manipulated so as not to view the text as autobiographical. In fact, the same unique narrative point of view is used to change the novella?s message from a didactic judgement of the evils of colonisation to a question, which is left for readers to answer personally. This is accomplished by contrasting the blurred narrative against distinct dialectic imagery. As discussed, the conflicting representations of Kurtz? exterior lead to a blurred or non-existent understanding of his motives or inner pressures, a blurring which prevents readers from making a clear cut decision as to his character?s morality. There are ??shade(s) of Kurtz?? (p82). Yet this character understanding is given in a background of dialectic imagery built upon from the novella?s opening. Black/white, light/darkness binary opposites are used throughout the text, attempting to simplify the issues into a clear decision of good and evil. Visual imagery creates a stark picture of black and white, examples of which are in the descriptions of African slaves:

He had a tied bit of white worsted round his neck? It looked startling round his black neck, this bit of white thread from beyond the seas. (p35)

As the blurred characterisation and starkly clear imagery are superimposed over each other, the effect is a manipulation of readers. This calls on them not to dismiss the issue, but to consider colonisation on a more complex level, with shades of morality, and attempt to answer the novella?s questions on that basis. Largely point of view manipulates readers into such an understanding of the issues of the text.

Heart of Darkness, in its portrayal of issues of racism and colonisation, utilises a unique narrative point of view in order to manipulate readers into specific understandings of the characters, their situations, conflicts in the text, and the issue at hand. The first person narration of Marlowe positions readers to sympathise with him, as the only character for which both exterior and interior characterisation is provided. The character of Kurtz, as the personification of colonisation, is barely exposed to readers, to guard against resistant readings of the text. Readers are presented conflicting exteriors of Kurtz, by a number of minor narrators, each colouring his character with their own motivations. The frame narrator, as a contrast to Marlowe, focuses readers on the issues being discussed, a necessary factor in the condensed novella format. By superimposing this blurred narration with clear dialectic imagery, readers are manipulated to have a complex understanding of colonisation and its many shades. As a contentious and sensitive issue in any historical context, it warranted a cautious address, and by utilising such an unusual point of view, Conrad has ensured that his text will respond to any developments in these issues that may arise in the contexts of readers to come.






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