Sculpting a void : the unspeakable in Joseph Conrad's Heart of darkness and Lord Jim

Abstract

This dissertation sets out to explore Joseph Conrad's problematisation of language in two of his most important works, Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim. Modernist works mark a renewed emphasis on a process of looking inward, analysing the instruments at the writer's disposal. In his renowned preface to The Nigger of the 'Narcissus', Conrad himself underscores the difficulties involved in the struggle to capture the truth in fiction. Through the use of the figure of Marlow, who narrates the story in both Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim, Conrad brings the process of storytelling to the fore. The first chapter of the dissertation focuses on Heart of Darkness, in which Marlow struggles to articulate the truth about the enigmatic Kurtz. The second chapter seeks to investigate the way Marlow attempts to rescue himself from the overwhelming doubt which undermines his 'fixed' standards by trying to account for the actions of a fellow mariner, Jim, in the process of telling his story. The third chapter illustrates the connection between these two novels and Julia Kristeva's ideas about the displacement of truth in language. My research attempts to underscore the notion that what lies at the heart of both novels is a story which remains untold. It is this absence of a definite true story that drives each of the two novels, destabilising them and opening them up to various readings and re-readings.