Exploring Characters and Subliminal Undertones in Heart of Darkness
There are three main topics to discuss when it comes to analyzing Conrad’s Heart of Darkness - symbolic interpretations, character development and language. Heart of Darkness has an abundance of almost subliminal undertones. This novella is written to such precision and high detail that almost every paragraph has a significant part to play in the overall plot. The author, Conrad, concentrates on creating a story to illustrate ideas and themes, rather than just a simple narrative. These ideas and themes are constantly pitched at the reader in a very intense and unrelenting manner, which makes them all the more powerful. Therefore, even a passage of just five pages can have a remarkable amount of detail to discuss.
As it happens, pages 54-59 are some of the least symbolic in the entire novel. Nevertheless, it still contains some important points to note. The theme first introduced on page 34, about the two types of devil,' is enforced here by the descriptions of the manager and his uncle, who are both clearly "flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil[s] of a rapacious and pitiless folly.• Neither of them would be particularly keen to take direct action against Kurtz; they would much prefer a less involved way of removing him from their worries. This is shown by their deliberate failure to get a doctor to Kurtz, as well as their personalities generally.
Their is another possible reference to devils and their religious connotations on page 54, when Marlow describes the arrival of the Eldorado Exploring Expedition as "a visitation.• This word can have two meanings: A formal visit or inspection, which is the initial interpretation one could make of Marlow's (or Conrad's) use of the word; however, it can also be used to mean a form of divine punishment. This is a very good example of the hidden depths to Heart of Darkness, in which things can have more than one meaning.
The final two areas of notable symbolism in this passage occur on pages 58 and 59. Both deal with the idea that the flabby devils' (the manager and his uncle) are not entirely human. This idea has to be carefully interpreted, however - both characters clearly are human; Conrad is really implying that their minds, their souls, may not be entirely what one may consider human. On page 58, the uncle is described as extending "his short flipper of an arm.• This, as with the visitation' quote, described above, can be interpreted in two very different ways: The uncle is apparently overweight ("He carried his fat paunch with ostentation on his short legs,• page 55), so describing his arm as a flipper' could simply be emphasising his excess weight, causing his arm to look misshapen; it could also be interpreted to suggest the inhuman aspects of the man.
On page 59, Marlow describes how their shadows "trailed behind them slowly over the tall grass without bending a single blade.• This, again, can be taken literally - after all, shadows do not bend grass. It is such an obvious and unnecessary statement, though, it makes the reader wonder whether Conrad is, in fact, inferring the impossibility that the men themselves did not bend the grass, in some ghostly way... This implication that the men are very light, as if hollow, was first suggested on page 42 by the manager saying "men who come out here should have no entrails,'• and reiterated on page 48 in Marlow's description of the manager's spy, describing him as "this papier-mâché Mephistopheles• with "nothing inside but a little loose dirt.• Interestingly, this also covers the same territory as the flabby devil' symbolism, as Mephistopheles was Lucifer's servant, and the man in question is the manager's servant - implying, again, that the manager is some sort of devil.
On the character development side of things, quite a lot can be discerned from the passage. The most important revelations centre around the character of Kurtz, who has been mentioned briefly at several points in the text previously, but never in so much detail as in this passage. It is clear from the conversation that takes place on page 56 that the manager and his uncle dislike Kurtz, apparently only for the reason that he has power and works hard. The story of Kurtz returning from the inner station and then turning around after travelling 300 miles says more about his personality than all the previous references put together. He is clearly a man who knows what he wants and is prepared to work hard to get it. He also appears to be a very moral man, as well as something of an idealist: If the manager is to be believed, Kurtz allegedly once said "each station should be like a beacon on the road towards better things.'• At one point Kurtz is described almost as a deity of some kind, when it is said that he can "make rain and fine weather.'• This links to page 79, when Marlow describes Kurtz as presenting "himself as a voice,• which is a particularly god-like idea.
Kurtz's personality is about as far from that of the manager and his uncle as is possible. The manager and his uncle could almost be the same person, in fact, as they both appear to share the same outlook on life. Neither have any morals or vision - they laugh at Kurtz's ideas, as quoted at the end of the last paragraph. More worrying than that, however, are the lengths to which they are prepared to go in order to silence Kurtz. They both hope that the climate will result in Kurtz's death and also state that they would like him hanged. It is unlikely that either of them would actually want an active role in any hanging of him, though, as both are flabby devils,' and dislike getting too involved in things. Also, the manager frequently puts up a façade that he cares about Kurtz when in public (for instance, later on in the story, when Marlow and the manager are journeying by boat down to Kurtz's inner station, the manager urges Marlow to go faster, though he knows it to be impossible - he just wants to be seen to be trying to do the right thing). This shallowness also ties in with the symbolism of the hollow men as mentioned earlier; they have no souls or deep feelings.
The techniques of language that Conrad uses in this passage are interesting. The most evident technique is used in the conversation between the manager and his uncle. This serves to emphasise the first-person narrative of Marlow's story. As would be the case, when one was trying to listen to two people talking after just awakening from sleep, Marlow only catches snippets of the conversation, so the reader only gets to be told about those particular snippets. As Marlow becomes more alert, the conversation begins to make some more sense, especially when the two men move closer to where Marlow is lying. This heightens the realism of the story whilst, at the same time, drawing the reader into the mystery and intrigue of the plot, making them want to read on and find out what is really going on between the manager and his uncle. Being such a complex book, it is important that the reader is given a reason to continue reading; if there was nothing to discover, it is quite likely that all but the most committed reader would give up. This technique is something that would be very hard to achieve in a third-person narrative, whereby the narrator is omniscient and would have no reason not to tell the reader all the details.
Another major technique that is used throughout the novel is in evidence in this passage. It has no official name, but the writer and critic Cedric Watts coined the term delayed decoding' for it. It is when the narrator holds back on key information, despite knowing about it, in order to make the story more interesting. In Heart of Darkness, the main narrator, Marlow, has already experienced all that he is telling - therefore he is quite capable of telling the end of the story first. However, he refrains from disclosing all the details, to ensure that his audience remains interested. An example of delayed decoding can be found on page 57. The manager talks about "a pestilential fellow, snapping ivory from the natives.'• Marlow then pretends that he has no knowledge of the man. Obviously he does, and the man eventually turns out to be the Harlequin, who they meet once they reach the inner station.
There are several smaller, less innovative uses of language to improve the text. The simple name of the Eldorado Exploring Expedition is very ironic - Eldorado inferring a rich paradise, exactly the opposite of what the exploring team discovers once they set off into the jungle. Towards the end of the passage, two phrases are used to make the atmosphere more ominous and foreboding. First of all, Marlow talks of the jungle, referring to the "darkness of its heart.• The passage then ends with "the sun was low,• a particularly downbeat ending, followed by the slightly ghostly description of the manager and his uncle's shadows failing to bend a single blade of grass.
All of these techniques are used to give the attentive reader a multi-layered and intriguing story. This particular passage also asks lots of questions without answering any others, urging the reader to continue delving into the story. At first glance, one might think that little happens in this passage - after all, most of it is taken up by a single conversation - but, upon closer examination, one can gain a great deal of knowledge about the characters and the deeper undertones to the novel.
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