Griffen Riley

12/04/18

Nayar

Critical Methods

The Powerful Role of Linguistics in Heart of Darkness

In general, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is a simple story about man

who travels to the Congo to investigate the stories he has heard about Captain Kurtz,

yet when one looks closer at the structure vocabulary used in Heart of Darkness, the

meaning begins to change, and thus becomes more impactful. This paper will look at

how the tone of Heart of Darkness changes when one analyzes diction and syntax of

the work, through a modern lens.

The tone of Heart of Darkness is cryptic in nature. Cryptic can be defined for

the purpose of this paper as something that is mysterious. The reader cannot help

but notice the gloomy and mysterious tone that is present throughout. Early in the

Novella, Conrad has a tendency to describe intense and dark situations that would

normally be expected to have more descriptive and sympathetic language in a way

that is almost scientific. While one could argue that this would take away from the

dark and creepy nature of the story that is necessary at time, this approach to the

diction of the novella actually creates sense of unease for the reader that contributes

to the overall immersion of the story in a positive way. For example, Marlow

describes his first glimpse at the enslaved natives, “Near the same tree two more,

bundles of acute angles, sat with their legs drawn up. One, with his chin propped on

his knees, stared at nothing, in an intolerable and appalling manner: his brother
phantom rested its forehead, as if overcome with a great weariness” (Conrad 18).

This passage reads more like the notes of a lab test than a concerned bystander.

There is no remorse, no sadness, and no trace of empathy. There is more fascination

in the tone Marlow describes the scene in than there is concern. This blunt and

matter of fact description symbolizes the way colonizing Europeans thought of the

Congo natives. To Europeans, the natives were less than human, thought of as mere

objects of fascination and tools that can be manipulated. The natives’ bodies are

starved, thin and emaciated. But all Marlow thinks is worth mentioning is how their

thin legs look like “acute angles”. Such a cold analytical choice of phrasing falls right

into line with the Company’s selfish and manipulative viewpoints on the natives.

When Marlow describes the “phantom brother resting his head”, the choice of the

pronoun “it” rather than “his” further demonstrates the dehumanizing way in which

the Europeans treated the natives.

As the story progresses and Marlow begins to realize that the native

“savages” are not all that different from him. This dramatic shift in opinion is

accompanied by an equally dramatic shift in tone. “They howled, and leaped, and

spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of your

remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly, yes, it was ugly enough;

but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself that there was in you just

the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim

suspicion of there being a meaning in it which you-you so remote from the night of

first ages-could comprehend” (Conrad 35). At this point, it becomes clear that

Marlow has changed to some degree. Earlier in the novella, Marlow would have
described this gathering something along the lines of a “strange social gathering of

the natives in which they howled like savages”. Notice, also, how poetic Marlow’s

description has become. He describes the natives as “wild and passionate” and

paints his idea of remote kinship in a way that eludes excitement and pride, as

opposed to “acute angles” and weary natives that are looking at nothing. This

sudden change in description can be explained simply. As soon as Marlow saw part

of himself in the native people and vice versa, it became about him, and because of

that he started to view the natives in a more positive light. Not because of any great

personal transformation, but simply because he really-really likes himself. While

this moment shows that there is a significant change in diction in the novella, it is

worth noting that Conrad’s syntax remains constant throughout.

While Conrad’s diction changes throughout the novella, he uses a consistent

style that includes tedious sentence structuring coupled with poetic word choice to

fully immerse the reader in his world. The way Conrad presents Heart of Darkness is

very intentional. The general structure of the story is as follows: “The author does

not explain, he communicates over a bridge of emotional response to a given object,

a response which he foresees and controls…the reader reacts and as he does so,

gradually attains comprehension of Conrad’s central meaning,” (Ridley 44). This

means that the reader is presented action sequences as they occur through the eyes

of Marlow. So as Marlow learns more about the situation, so does the reader. Many

times, this information is given in small observations. For example, we learn more

about the natives the more Marlow sees them and hears about them, but we are

never given the story from the point of view of the natives. This telling of a story as
opposed to showing a story is also referred to as diegesis (Venturino 304). Thus the

reader is left to make an observations and assumptions about their life and culture

through a strictly European lens.

Another way in which Conrad manipulates the narrative through his writing

is in the way he physically presents it to us. Not only does Conrad give us the story

in bits and pieces, but sometimes he gives us the literal sentences in bits and pieces,

forcing the reader to stop frequently while reading. The opening line of the novella

“immediately alerts us to the oppositions of movement and stasis that permeate the

tale” (Jones). Conrad establishes that not only will the story be about opposite

“movements” at work, but the actual structure and syntax are also “movements” at

work. “The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails

and was at rest. The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound by

the river the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the tide,” (Conrad 1). In

each sentence above, the verb tense is simple past and the voice is active. With this

being said, the endings to the clauses are unusual for it to be in active voice. “The

Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails and was at

rest.” Conrad structures this sentence in a strange way. The point of the sentence is

to show that the ship is anchored, yet because Conrad describes the ship as

“cruising” and as clinging to the anchor rather than the anchor clinging to the ship, it

makes it seem like the ship itself wants to cruise. The reader further experiences

this by giving the ship a female gender, allotting it human qualities that not even the

native “savages” have been awarded yet. Finally, Conrad what the reader would

typically have noticed first at the end of the sentence, and that is the fact that the
ship is at rest. The whole point of the sentence is to describe a ship that is not

moving, but the only word in the sentence that implies that the ship is resting is the

last thing mentioned. Conrad uses strong action words like “swung” and “flutter” to

describe a ship that is moving. This creates a contrast in movement for the reader.

“The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound by the river the

only thing for it was to come to and wait for the tide.” The second sentence of the

passage accomplishes the same sense of movement by contrasting strong active

verbs with passive phrasing. “The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm,” by

giving the flood and the wind lifelike qualities it makes the reader feel like they are

waiting on the flood and the wind. After all this description alluding to actions the

boat is taking, once again Conrad reminds us that it’s really just a boat and not

actually doing anything but sitting waiting in the water, but he does so in a way that

alludes to movement and the cessation of movement by describing the boat as

literally being “bound by the river” as if the river is intentionally holding the boat

back.

Conrad creates movement in his syntax in other ways as well. “The reaches

opened up before us and closed behind as if the forest had stepped leisurely across

the water,” (Conrad 35). Then the adverb “suddenly” creates a shift in the action in a

fast and unexpected way. As the action shifts to something intense and fast, so too

does Conrad’s writing. “But suddenly as we struggled round a bend there would be a

glimpse of rush walls, of peaked grass-roofs, a burst of yells, a whirl of African limbs,

a mass of hands clapping, of feet stomping, of bodies swaying, of eyes rolling over

the droop of heavy and motionless foliage” (35). As the action shifted to chaotic and
rapid, so too did the writing. Many different things are pointed out quickly, painting

an image of chaos. All of the sudden there is yelling and bodies and dancing and

singing and it is all very chaotic. In order to recreate this through syntax, Conrad

creates a long sentence with all of the events listed out rapidly. By doing this, rather

than a whole page dedicated to a long and poetic description of the event, the reader

views it as chaotic, intense and even scary. If Conrad had stretched the scene out in a

very flowery and poetic fashion, the reader might have interpreted that situation as

one of fascination and awe, coupled with some excitement. Conrad could have

depicted that entire scene completely differently just based on the way he

structures his sentences grammatically.

 Works Cited

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness.

Jones, Susan. Physical and Narrative Movement in ‘Heart of Darkness’. Columbus,

Ohio, 2008.

Pecora, Vincent. “Heart of Darkness and the Phenomenology of Voice.” ELH, vol. 52,

no. 4, 1985, pp. 993–1015. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3039475.

Ridley, Florence H. “The Ultimate Meaning of ‘Heart of Darkness.’” Nineteenth-

Century Fiction, vol. 18, no. 1, 1963, pp. 43–53. JSTOR, JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/2932333.

Venturino, Steven J. The Complete Idiots Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism.

Alpha Books, 2013.