Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1996. Vol. 1. Eger Journal of English Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 24)

Tibor Tóth: Conrad's 'Secret Garden'

and culturally imperialist, but Heart of Darkness suggests more of a sense of psychological discontinuity generated by the above mentioned hardships of the 'civilised' man when trying to understand the 'prehistoric' man, than racial prejudice. These problems are openly stated by Marlow in the book. He renegotiates these difficulties with his listeners within the text, just as Conrad attempts to translate an altered version of his experiences in Africa for his audience through the novella. Marlow tells his listeners that he wants to tell them what he saw. The sights which Marlow perceives are not easily imparted; thus, the language in which experiences are related is notoriously inexact. Nevertheless, the sense of sight, of clarity of vision, is an important if compromised value of the novella and it clearly negates the idea of the superiority of the 'civilised' world over the 'primitive' world. Marlow is after all the 'agent' of civilisation unable to comprehensively interpret the world he visits. Sight, the ability to see things, is obsessively repeated in the novella. The Harlequin's highest praise for Kurtz is, after all, that "he made me see things - things."" At the beginning of the second part of the novella, Marlow says: "As for me, I seemed to see Kurtz for the first "23 time. As we have already stated, Marlow is aware of the tremendous difficulties of relating the visual truth to its deeper meanings and to his listeners and he cries out in frustration: "Do you see him? Do you see the story? Do you see anything?"" Marlow's exasperation is expressive of a palpable sense of dislocation on his side in the Congo. The reader who expects the mistiness to clear as Marlow progresses towards the heart of darkness and towards the revelation promised at the beginning of the journey is faced with a thickening fog in which meaning seems to be swallowed. As he looks out from the steamboat, shrouded in mist, he clearly formulates this dislocation: She (the steamer) had been on the point of dissolving, and a misty strip of water, perhaps two feet broad, around her. The rest of the world was nowhere, as far as our eyes and ears were concerned. Just 2

2 Heart of Darkness, 55 2

3 Heart of Darkness, 34 2

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