Conrads Intent In Heart Of Darkness :: essays research papers

Distilling the phantomIn analysis of Heart of repulsiveness, much is made of Conrads intentions in telling histale. People search for a moral lesson, a fixed social commentary, an absolution for theevil of the dark jungle. It isnt there, and thats non the point. In works of philosophy ( deal The Republic), or works of political scheme (likeSocialism Utopian and Scientific), or works of natural science (like The innovation ofSpecies), this sifting of important and clear ideas from the mess and confusion ofexperience is what writers like Plato, Darwin, or Engels ar doing. They experience theworld in all its mussy confusion, and then they attempt to airlift from the mess, bycareful selection, a body of ordering principles which other people can comprehend and catch up with commit of. In more figurative words, they are trying to shed the wake of intelligenceupon the lousiness of experience.As, primarily, students and teachers, we naturally look for the conveyance of suchide as in any material we encounter. We miss that books like Heart of Darkness arefundamentally different in intent and we continue searching for that lesson from which tomake a rational response to the story. Even literary professionals seem a great deal to fall into the error of neglecting ormisunderstanding the novelists purpose. Consider, for example, the criticism leveledagainst Heart of Darkness by Paul OPrey in his introduction to the Penguin edition. He writes It is an irony that the failures of Marlow and Kurtz are paralleled by acorresponding failure of Conrads technique--brilliant though it is--as the vastabstract darkness he imagines exceeds his capacity to analyze and dramatize it, andthe very unfitness to portray the storys central subject, the unimaginable, theimpenetrable (evil, emptiness, mystery or whatever) becomes a central theme. Mr. OPreys sentence is somewhat impenetrable itself, but his complaint is thatConrad wants to propose an abstract notion of darkness, bu t he doesnt manage toadequately make it or analyze it. He then goes on to quote, approvingly, another critic,throng Guetti, who complains that Marlow never gets below the surface, and is deniedthe final self-knowledge that Kurtz had. In other words, according to Mr. OPrey and Mr. Guetti, Conrad has somewayfailed in his attempt to delineate the horror that is Kurtzs final vision, failed to penetratethe darkness that Marlow evokes, failed to give a precise name and shape to the dark and sad human condition. Mr. OPrey and Mr. Guetti want, as all good academics want,clarity, definition, intellectual coherence, order, a well-stated and well-argued thesis they