NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE/FRAME NARRATOR in Heart of Darkness

First-time readers of Heart of Darkness may be initially puzzled by

Conrads decision to have Marlows story told to the reader by the
anonymous narrator who listens to Marlow on the deck of the Nellie.
Such a reader may wonder why Conrad would make Heart of Darkness
a frame tale at all and not simply begin with Marlow telling the story,
as many first-person narratives do. The reason is that Conrads frame
narrator, like the reader, learns that his ideas about European imperialism are
founded on a number of lies that he has wholeheartedly
believed. By the end of the novel, Marlows tale significantly changes
the narrators attitude toward the ships and men of the past.
Heart of Darkness begins not on a steamboat fighting its way upriver
in the Congo, but on the deck of a cruising yawla boat used more
for domestic trade than overseas imperial conquests. All is still: The sails
do not flutter, the tide has subsided and the wind is nearly calm.
Immediately the reader sees a contrast between the serene European setting and
the chaotic and threatening African landscape described later.
The narrator begins speaking as the day is drawing to a close; his
descriptions of the sky and weather suggest both beauty and mystery.
While his descriptions contribute to the atmosphere aboard the Nellie,
they also reflect the moral haze and mist in which Marlow finds himself as
he journeys closer and closer to Kurtz. The afternoon is thus like
the tale that Marlow will tell: ambiguous, brooding, and, above all, dark.
Note that the narrator remarks that for Marlow, the meaning of an
episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the talk
which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze. This is an important
description of Marlowsand, by extension, Conradstechnique:
Heart of Darkness is as much about a mans witnessing horror as much
as it concerns the same mans struggle to put his experiences into words.
The way that Marlow tells his tale, therefore, is as much a part of the
novel as the tale itself. Sentences such as this description of the jungle
It was the stillness of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable
intentionand this one about Kurtzs Report to the Society for the
Suppression of Savage CustomsIt gave me the notion of an exotic
Immensity ruled by an august Benevolencethus demonstrate Marlows
inability to fully articulate the exact meaning of what he saw in
the Congo. Like the sky above the Nellie, Marlows language sometimes

becomes hazy and fails to illuminate the very subjects that his language is
presumably trying to clarify.
Before Marlow speaks, however, Conrad allows the reader to glimpse
the narrators values and assumptions. He first speaks of the Thames as
a venerable stream that exists to perform unceasing service to those
who have tamed it: The old river in its broad reach rested unruffled at
the decline of day, after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its
banks. To the narrator, nature exists to serve mankind, especially mankinds
commerce
and
trade.
This
idea
of
mankinds
dominance over the earth is questioned by Marlow later in the novel,
as he looks out at the jungle and asks, What were we that had strayed
in here? Could we handle that dumb thing, or would it handle us? I felt
how big, how confoundedly big, was that thing that couldnt talk, and
perhaps was deaf as well. What was in there? Conrads reason for framing
Marlows narrative thus begins to become apparent: The narrators
values and assumptions are challengedalthough indirectlyby Marlows
story, and the reader is meant to perceive these two points-of-view
as two different understandings of mans relationship to the natural
world and the people in it. Although the narrator states that the Thames
leads to the uttermost ends of the earth, he never imagines that his
civilized London could ever have been (as Marlow calls it), one of the
dark
places
of
the
earth.
Such a contrast between the narrator and Marlows attitudes is more
readily seen in the way the narrator speaks of what he sees as Englands
glorious past. According to him, the Thames is a river that has served
the nation in efforts of both trade and exploration. The narrator finds
glory and pride in his nations past, assured in his knowledge that
knight-errants of the sea have brought sparks from the sacred fire
of civilization to the most remote corners of the earth. While these
knights may have resorted to the sword, they have also passed the
torch, and, in doing so, made the world a more prosperous and civilized place.
(Recall the painting by Kurtz that Marlow sees at the Central Station.) The
narrator
knows
the
men
and
their
ships
and
speaks
of them in a reverential tone. Europes past is the history of brave adventurers
conquering the unknown, and, in the process, transforming the
dreams of men into the seeds of commonwealths and the germs of
empires.

Clearly, this vision of Europe as a civilizing and torch-bearing force

does not accord with Marlows portrayal of it in his narrative. While
institutions like the Company may ostensibly wish to help the less fortunate
peoples of the earth (as Kurtzs Report to the Society for the Suppression of
Savage Customs and his painting in the Accountants office suggest), Marlow
learns
that
the
narrators
version
of
imperialism
is
a
lie. The Europeans he meets are not knight-errants but faithless pilgrims;
the Company does not bring a spark from that sacred fire,
but death, and instead of a bright jewel, flashing in the night of
time, the Company is a rapacious and weak-eyed devil. Marlows
story thus challenges the readerwho may hold some of the same opinions as
the narratorto view the men of the Company not as men
engaged in a great mission, but instead as men engaged in a weary pilgrimage
amongst
hints
for
nightmares.
At the end of the novel Marlows tale has significantly changed the
narrators attitude toward European imperialism. The narrator compares him to
a
meditating
Buddhaclearly
he
has
been
touched
by
Marlows teachings. While the Director of Companies remarks, We
have lost the flow of the ebb because he wants to break the uncomfortable
silence created by the power of Marlows story, the narrator has
been too affected by Marlows ideas, and his enlightenment affects his
description of what he sees as he looks at the Thames: a dark river leading to
an
immense
darkness.
The Director of Companies remains aloof, since his living is made
presumably by the same horrific processes that Marlow has just
described. Only the narratorand the readerunderstand Marlows
initial point: Civilized Europe was once also a dark place, and it has
only become more morally dark through the activities of institutions
such as the Company.