DUSK AND THE UNCANNY IN CONRAD’S HEART OF DARKNESS

The dichotomy of Light and Darkness is noticeably prevalent and all-encompassing in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, so much so that the symbolisms and meanings of this antithetical pair may seem at times to fall into ambiguity or to get muddled into complicated significations. Yet the novel remains comfortable with such a situation. Its themes thrive on ambivalence and a tone of seeming uncertainty. What at first glance appears to be a scene of incertitude for characters can turn out to be, after an uncovering of many complex layers, a moment of revelation, self-awareness, or existential understanding. In Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the gulf between Light and Darkness – the gulf that harbours the uncanny, the gulf that represents Dusk – is depicted as a zone wherein Marlow experiences self-realisation and enlightenment.

There is in Heart of Darkness a gap in the dichotomy of Light and Darkness. This gap is magnified and made observable by the distinct contrast in the representative figures of Light and Darkness, and indeed they are portrayed to be almost archetypal. Kurtz is said to be “claimed” by “powers of darkness” (1989). The darkness embodied in Kurtz is universalised as Marlow describes the last moments of his life: “The brown current ran swiftly out of the heart of darkness, bearing us down towards the sea…and Kurtz’s life was running swiftly too, ebbing, ebbing out of his heart into the sea of inexorable time” (2003). The juxtaposition of these sentences parallels Kurtz’s heart with the “heart of darkness” that is found everywhere from the centre of the wilderness to which the phrase alludes, to the River Thames which it threatens to encompass. Kurtz’s position as a figure that embodies darkness is further solidified when he is described in his deathbed as not being able to see the “light…within a foot of his eyes” (2004). Indeed, his stare “could not see the flame of the candle, but was wide enough to embrace the whole universe, piercing enough to penetrate all the hearts that beat in the darkness” (2005). The irony of this description is in Kurtz’s inability to see light no matter how wide or universal his stare is. All he is able to see is darkness, and that darkness resides within him.

Inasmuch as Kurtz is unable to see the light, the Intended is ignorant of – if not unable to comprehend – the darkness in Kurtz. She is portrayed as an archetype of light and of what is beautiful, pure, and innocent. Marlow describes her thus: “She struck me as beautiful—I mean she had a beautiful expression. I know that the sunlight can be made to lie too, yet one felt that no manipulation of light and pose could have conveyed the delicate shade of truthfulness upon those features” (2007). She has “a pale head”, “fair hair”, a “pale visage”, and a “pure brow” (2007). All these fair and beautiful external features set her up in contrast with the darkness within Kurtz. However, her innocence, her “unextinguishable light of belief and love” (2008), is thought by Marlow to be incapable of understanding or bearing the reality of Kurtz’s darkness. He says that, for her, it would be “too dark altogether” (2010). He thus implies that there is a necessary separation between the dealings of Light and Darkness.

Following Marlow’s logic for separation, it would seem that the Darkness and Light that Kurtz and his Intended signify respectively have between them an unbridgeable gulf. And yet the novel complicates this distinction. Dusk, a time that rests between the bright and dark hours of the day, is depicted in the beginning of the novel with poignancy: “And at last, in its curved and imperceptible fall, the sun sank low, and from glowing white changed to a dull red without rays and without heat, as if about to go out suddenly, stricken to death by the touch of that gloom brooding over a crowd of men” (1955). It is in the light of this setting sun where the Nellie’s crew go through a contemplative and aesthetic experience: “We looked at the venerable stream not in the vivid flush of a short day that comes and departs for ever, but in the august light of abiding memories” (1955). It is also in the climate of this setting wherein Marlow’s narrative is unfolded: not in the brilliance of midday nor in the darkness of midnight, but in the dying light of dusk.

Dusk is the gulf between Light and Darkness, and this gulf may be equated to the realm of the uncanny, the realm of Freud’s Unheimlich. Indeed, insofar as Freud’s concept of the Unheimlich breaks down the binary boundaries between its own essence and that of the Heimlich, so does the concept and imagery of dusk break down the dichotomy of Light and Darkness. This area of the uncanny in the novel breaks down oppositions in such a way that there is certainty to be found in uncertainty and realisation in ambiguity. The gulf of the uncanny, the gap symbolised by dusk, is a dialectical realm wherein the ethos of Marlow’s character attains an understanding of its existence and that of the world and people around him. The culmination of Marlow’s experience, being a character situated symbolically in such a realm, is described by himself as such: “It seemed somehow to throw a kind of light on everything about me—and into my thoughts. It was sombre enough too—and pitiful—not extraordinary in any way—not very clear either. No, not very clear. And yet it seemed to throw a kind of light” (1958). In his experiences are fragments of self-realisation, revelations, and understandings, not least of which is his understanding of Kurtz’s darkness and his Intended’s sparkle of sublimity. Marlow also explains to his fellow seamen that “it seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream…No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one’s existence” (1973). His contemplations and philosophies, unclear to himself at first, are constantly deconstructed and reconstructed in the course of his journey and his narrative.

Marlow is subsequently elevated into a state of enlightenment. He becomes representative of the individual who beholds the Truth and escapes the Platonic Cave, but who also consequently becomes alienated from his company. By the end of the novel he is said to have “ceased, and sat apart, indistinct and silent, in the pose of a meditating Buddha” (2010). And indeed he has already recognised his isolation in the artistic frame when he states, “We live, as we dream—alone” (1973). Yet this alienation, this dream-like uncanny state of retrospection, allows Marlow to observe and understand the universal darkness while remaining apart from it. He thereby becomes the didactic Individual, a signifier of the Particular marked especially by his contrast with the nameless Others, his fellow seafarers, to whom he shares his profound reflections on Truth and the human soul. In this perspective he is not alone. His life, as in his dream-like narration, is recounted with company. Together, they journey through the river of experience and past memories, with the threat of the looming darkness making their quiet solidarity all the more poignant.

 

Bibliography:

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. The Longman Anthology of British Literature, ed.by K. J.H. Dettmar, Pearson Education, 2010. pp.1949-2010.

Sellic Work — A Review of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Beowulf

Undoubtedly J.R.R. Tolkien’s translation of Beowulf has long been awaited by avid fans and scholars of Beowulf and those of Tolkien himself. For those following the works of Tolkien, his translation is indeed an addition to the vast, mostly posthumous publications the world has already come to love dearly. To the scholars of Beowulf (and Anglo-Saxon literature), it is perhaps another big step into understanding further the themes and the ingenuity of the ancient English works. Any serious student of Anglo-Saxon literature would know of the publication of Tolkien’s lecture Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics. The lecture shed a new light into what had once been a severely understudied area of English literature, and consequently was it thus an obscure path full of misguided criticisms and misinterpretations of Beowulf. Now has come to us once more a work of technical genius and scholarly wisdom, penned by an author so loved and a professor so well-versed in the ancient Germanic texts.

            Many people know of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fictional works, yet very few know of his scholarly publications or even understand their impact on their respective branches. Long before he was famed as a writer, Tolkien was first renowned as a professor knowledgeable in the different areas of Northern literature. He was also a linguist and a philologist, fluent in diverse Germanic languages, dead and living. His works on Beowulf, then, are written as such by a highly-qualified and moreover passionate individual.

            Critics of course disagree. Tolkien’s writing has at times been judged as crass or stilted; but one may discover neither descriptions generally true in the translation of Beowulf. He has matched with equal skill the technical genius of the original author. And although readers used to verse translations of Beowulf will find it odd that Tolkien’s is written in prose, they may find it excusable upon understanding that artistic detail and precision have been major objectives in Tolkien’s mind as he set out to execute his work. The verse form sacrificed, the compensation then exists in the Shakespeare-like quality of his prose as expressed, I think, in this quote:

 

Then about the tomb rode warriors valiant, sons of princes, twelve men in all, who would their woe bewail, their king lament, a dirge upraising, that man praising, honouring his prowess and his mighty deeds, his worth esteeming – even as is meet that a man should his lord beloved in words extol, in his heart cherish, when forth he must from the raiment of flesh be taken far away. Thus bemourned the Geatish folk their master’s fall, comrades of his hearth, crying that he was ever of the kings of earth of men most generous and to men most gracious, to his people most tender and for praise most eager (lines 2659-2669).

 

More important though than his technical prowess in poetic prose and the Anglo-Saxon tongue (as evidenced in the Sellic Spell), Tolkien provides scholars with insightful commentaries, highly detailed in nature, on particularly important passages of the text (lines 131-150 for example). Revolutionary ideas and theories perhaps previously unexplored or unheard of about Beowulf are aplenty.

What is truly beautiful in this translation is the heartfelt passion J.R.R. Tolkien has weaved into his writings, which is furthermore showcased in his composition of the Sellic Spell and the Lays of Beowulf. Christopher Tolkien was no closer to the truth than when he remarked that ‘the fact that it has remained unpublished for so many years has even become a matter of reproach’. Reproachable it is indeed as all the wisdom instilled in Tolkien’s works on Beowulf have become important cornerstones of that research area; and this translation further asserts Tolkien’s authority on Beowulf, laying grounds for further studies and a deeper understanding on the subject matter. Thankfully it has been published; otherwise the world of English and Anglo-Saxon literature would have permanently lost another portal leading back to the ancient days and its people’s uptake of human existence.