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Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography
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'A Choice of Nightmares': Narration and desire in Heart of Darkness
CLIVE BARNETT Published online: 14 Jul 2010.

To cite this article: CLIVE BARNETT (1996) 'A Choice of Nightmares': Narration and desire in Heart of Darkness, Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography, 3:3, 277-292 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09663699625568

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G ender, P lace and C ulture, V ol. 3 , N o. 3 , p p. 2 7 7 ± 2 9 1 , 1 9 9 6

`A C hoice of N ightm ares’: narration and desire in H eart of D arkness
CLIVE BARN ETT, U niversity of R eading, U K

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T his pap er considers the gendered organisation of narration in J oseph C onrad ’s Heart of D arkness. I t is argued that the text ® ctionalises its audience as an exclus ively m asculine com m unity of readers, b ounde d together b y shared interests and com m itm ents. T he discurs ive co nstruction of p referred reading positions is critically exam ined w ith reference to the m ob ilisation of disco urses of cannib alism and representations of fem ininity in the text. I t is argued that positive evaluations of the text, as a critique of im perialism or a com m entary on the hum an co ndition, are p rob lem atised b y consideration of the gender values inscrib ed in the texture of the narrative.
ABSTRACT

D isloca ting H ea rt o f D a rk n es s

Joseph Conrad’s H eart of D arkness is w idely acknow ledged to be a powerful m oral critique of imperialism. The stage upon which its universal themes are played out is King Leopold II’s Congo Free State at the end of the nineteenth century. Conrad had been to the Congo in 1890 and H eart of D arkness ® rst appeared, in B lackw ood’s M agaz ine in 1899, at a time when events there were central catalysts to an emerging liberal and hum anitarian critique of European imperialism. T his story’ s location in speci® c geographical and historical contexts has been used to insist upon the text’s critical engagem ent with pressing political issues of its own conte mporary m oment. H owever, on closer examination, it emerges that reference to these speci® c geopolitical co-ordinates is not directly provided by the text itself. T he problem atic quality of geographical reference in a text over¯ owing w ith a vocabulary of rest, m otion, location, and travel, is underscored at various points [1]. The text does not refer as such to events taking place in any nam ed location other than the occasion for M arlow telling his story. H eart of D arkness is the story of M arlow telling the story of his journey up-river and his encounter w ith K urtz. Recognising the ways in which H eart of D arkness simultaneously secures and problematises the locations of Marlow ’s story draws attention to how the text ® ctionalises its audience. By mobilising a rhetoric of allusion, and underscoring the con ventional qualities of com m unication in general and geographical nom enclature in particular, the text calls upon the implicit knowledge of its readers to `get’ the allusions, and to reclose the referential gaps which it opens. Attention to the geographical rhetoric of H eart of D arkness therefore directs our attention to the need to consider the textual constru ction of reading positions in the novel. Brosseau (1994) argues that scrutiny of the speci® cally textual features of literary texts has frequently been sacri® ced to instrumental appropriations of geographical themes. Thus, while H eart of D arkness might be fruitfully read in
C orrespo ndence: C live B arnett, Departm ent of G eograph y, U niversity of Read ing, W hiteknights, PO Box 227, R eading R G6 2A B, U K . 0966-36 9X /96/030277- 15 $6.00 Ó 1996 Jou rn als O xford Ltd

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relation to its representations of landscape, gender, race, and other thematic concerns, m y particular focus here is upon the representation of narrative itself. I want to pause to disrupt the text’s own impulse to narrative closure by exam ining the tensions set up by its representations of the uneven relations between m asculinity, femininity, and narration. H eart of D arkness invites its readers to be loyal to the principle of closed com m unities of interpretation. In this paper, I w ant to ask w hat sort of reader this text is trying to turn m e into by constructing its preferred audience in these com m unal terms.
R ea ding Im p eratives

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In staging its reading as an activity shaped by a com m itm ent to certain bonds of loyalty and com m unity, H eart of D arkness exempli® es Con rad’s conviction that the world `rests on a few simple ideas’, not the least of which is `the idea of Fidelity’ (Con rad, 1919, p. 19). M arlow returns to Europe charged with a duty to prote ct M r Kurtz’ s m emory. His observation of colonial exploitation has provided him with `a choice of nightm ares’ (Conra d, 1988, p. 62) [2]. Kurtz went to Africa with the purpose of providing guidance and a wider sense of m oral m ission to the imperial project, and M arlow found himself identi® ed with him as a mem ber of the new `gang of virtue’ (p. 28), an identi® cation initially forced upon him w hich he subsequently af® rms as his own `choice’. In `choosing’ K urtz, in turnin g `to Kurtz for reliefÐ positively for relief’ (p. 61) from the brazen hypocrisy of colonial apologetics, M arlow decides to remain loyal to what he regards as the most manly of options. The idealistic vision of im perialism as a civilising m ission is revealed as no more than a com forting illusion, em bodied throu ghout the text by wom en, w hile the greed, violence, and hypocrisy of modern empire are of an essentially unmanly variety (pp. 19± 20). The nightmare Marlow chooses binds him tightly into a network of exclusively masculine com munality which excludes wom en and those form s of m asculinity considered to be `¯ abby’. It is this choice, a choice forced up on him , to which M arlow has rem ained loyal in guarding K urtz’ s memory. This obligation requires him to keep secret from all but a select few the full details of what he has experienced and observed, as he explains when recounting w hy he did not raise the alarm upon discovering that Kurtz had left the steamer and return ed ashore: I did not betray KurtzÐ it was ordered I should never betray him Ð it was written I should be loyal to the nightm are of my choice. I w as anxious to deal with this shadow of myself alon e,Ð and to this day I don’ t know why I was so jealous of sharing with anyone the peculiar blackness of that experience. (p. 64) M arlow ’s com m itm ent to K urtz is presented here as a freely taken choice to submit himself to an unavoidable obligation: as a respon se to the com mand of an uncond itional categorical im perative which m ust be obeyed. In turn , the chain of identi® cations which the text sets in play between K urtz and Marlow , and Marlow and his audience, invites the reader to join in the same form of identi® cation structured around M arlow ’s `choice’. H is loyalty to K urtz requires that he simultaneously pass on his words w hile betraying neither their force nor Kurtz’ s good reputation. As a con sequence, narration is organised aroun d certain principles of division and exclusion. Attention to the representational ® eld of sexual difference around which the reader relations of H eart of D arkness are organised will cause us to question the possibility of maintaining ® delity to this text. Rather than an unconditional af® rmation of the text’s own protocols, w hat follow s will be a work of reading which is neither entirely respectful of the text, nor entirely indifferent to it.

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M arlow ’s story is not a simple description of past events. Rather, he stages these events as part of a retrospective exercise in self-examination. His accounts of the attack on his steamboat, of the death of the native helmsman, and of his ® rst sight of the severed and shrunken heads which decorate Kurtz’ s com pound, are all presented in w ays which dramatise each of these events as he restages his ow n surprise. In so doing, the reader is instantiated in the same m ovement by w hich M arlow realised that the `sticks’ w ere in fact arrow s, that the `warm feeling’ on his feet w as the helmsm an’ s blood, and that the `ornam ents’ w ere in fact heads. The story w hich M arlow relates is one in which the central `events’ are overheard conversations, rumours, and snatches of verbal or written inform ation regarding K urtz, and ® nally, the encounter with K urtz himself, who appears to M arlow as little more than a voice and w hose ® nal words are the anim ating centre of his story. H eart of D arkness thus exempli® es the dramatic protocols which Said (1974, p. 119) suggests are characteristic of Con rad’s ® ctionÐ swapped yarns, reports, and verbal exchangesÐ and which work to constru ct the narratives as acts of sharing between a speaker and a hearer. The text opens w ith the fram e narrator describing the occasion for M arlow’ s story. Sitting aboard the N ellie on the Tham es, ® ve men wait for the tide to turn as the day draws to a close. This group form s a com munity: Between us there was as I have said somewhere, the bond of the sea. Besides holding all hearts together throu gh periods of separation it had the effect of m aking us tolerant of each oth er’s yarnsÐ and even convictions. (p. 7) The `bond of the sea’ is presented as tying the narrator and his fellows together into a co m m unity of story tellers . T he narrator’ s ® rst words, related in a tone of familiarity to his own utterances on previous occasions, suggest that this particular meeting is but one in a line of similar gatherings. The description of Marlow ’s resem blance to a Buddha `preaching in European clothes’ (p. 10) places him in a line of prophetic ® gures w ho form part of a chain of inherited wisdom which is continued inde® nitely. And that the bond of the sea provides access to an exclusive com munity of trust w ithin w hich inform ation can be shared is con ® rmed w hen the Russian `harlequin’ takes M arlow into his con® dence in telling him that the attack on the steamboat which preceded the arrival at K urtz’ s rem ote station had been ordered by Kurtz himself. The Russian tells him this secret because of the professional bond w hich they share. It is as a `brothe r seam an’ (p. 62) that he takes him into his con® dence. Thus, in assuring the Russian that K urtz’ s reputation is safe with him, Marlow also af® rm s his loyalty to the com m unity of men of the sea. W eaving the narrative backw ards and forwards into wider networks of storytelling, the text makes available a position for the reader as part of the same com munity of listeners which make up M arlow’ s im mediate audience. The frame narrator does not disrupt or contradict the interpellative force of M arlow ’s narrative, but secures it by including the reader as a listener bound by the same bonds of ® delity as those listening to M arlow ’s story on board the N ellie . T he reader is invited on board to share in the intim acy of this particular com pany. Stewart (1980) suggests that the `dark transm issible import’ of K urtz’ s death is betrayed when he lies to Kurtz’ s ® ance about his ® nal words at the close of the story. Â On the contra ry, the `import’ of Kurtz’ s fate is established on ly because the transmission of his story is tightly policed in precisely the way represented by M arlow’s lie to the Intended. In ® nally telling of his experiences, M arlow is not betraying his `choice of nightmares’ but af® rming the com m itm ent to a strictly bounded network of storytelling

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through which his responsibility to guard K urtz’ s memory was ® rst articulated, and into which the reader of the text is also being solicited. N ot betraying Kurtz involves not com plete secrecy, but selective retelling, of which this text becom es the perform ance. Marlow is not representative of all seamen, and this is re¯ ected in his stories, which do not have meaning in quite the same way as those of the typical mariner: The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut. But M arlow was not typical (if his propensity to spin yarns be excepted) and to him the m eaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale w hich brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of these m isty halos that, sometim es, are made visible by the spectral illum ination of m oonshine. (p. 9)

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In providing its own interpretative protocols, the text also places M arlow in a tradition of storytelling to which he bears an eccentric relation. It is in this speci® c relation to a particular com munity of knowledge that the `anti-imperialist’ im pulse of the text lies. It is because he addresses an audience of professionals com mitted to the business of state, com m erce, and empire, that the demysti® catory force of his story registers a critical impact. At the same time, this force is limited by being con tained within this closed circle of friends (M arlow , his shipmates, and the reader of the text). If H eart of D arkness thus exempli® es Conra d’ s `double vision’ (Parry, 1983, p. 7), simultaneously condemning a certain imperialist ideology while also colluding in its modes of authority, it does so by the way in which its overlapping narratives are constru cted as exclusive form s of knowledge and sharing. Marlow ’ s cynicism and irony are staged explicitly as rebuffs to the easy assumptions of his audience. The fram e narrator extols the gloriou s imperial past and present for which the Thames ® guratively stands as the source: H unters for gold or purveyors of fam e they all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the m ight within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred ® re. W hat greatness had not ¯ oated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknow n earth?¼ The dreams of m en, the seeds of com m onw ealths, the germs of em pire. (p. 8) The narrator’ s invocation of this imperial past is not made aloud, so that access to these thoughts establishes a bond of intimacy between the narrator and the reader. In this way, the reader is positioned as one who shares in the values and convictions of M arlow ’s audience on board the N ellie . It is these optim istic and untrou bled thoughts that M arlow interrupts when he breaks the silence on board by suggesting that this, too, `has been one of the dark places on the earth’ (p. 9). W hat follow s is Marlow ’s im aginative consideration of the time when Britain itself w as a `place of darkness’ . If this throw s the simple thoughts of the narrator off balance, then it is im portant to note where precisely M arlow ’s sympathies lie in the course of drawing the parallel. It is with the dilem mas of the conqueror living amidst an abom inable and detestably fascinating wilderness that M arlow is concerned throu ghout his story. The object of his narrative is the relation betw een conduct and a set of guiding principles in extrem e situations. T his story is the occasion for his re-examination of vocation in the wake of his experiences. Having had any conv iction in the redeeming value of work in the service of the imperial mission revealed as a mere sham , M arlow narrativises the resultant crisis of vocation and in so doing establishes narration itself as an alternative version of vocation. A s Robbins suggests (1993, p. 123), M arlow’ s knowledge of the dark truth of the hum an condition

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can be `embraced existentially’ only by being contained w ithin a `professional com munity of listeners’, com mitment to w hich is established as an inviolate value. H eart of D arkness is constru cted in the form of the narrative art which W alter Benjamin characterised as storytelling, an af® nity identi® ed by Said (1974), who does not, how ever, pursue the gendered implications of this form of narrative exposition. In Benjamin’s discussion, storytelling is distinguished from novelistic discourse by being rooted in a shared sense of com munity between speaker and listener. It is an essentially oral and com m unal form in which narratives are woven into myriad `layers of retelling’ : `The storyteller takes w hat he tells from experience, his ow n or that reported by oth ers. A nd he in turn makes it the experience of those listening to him’ (Benjamin, 1968, p. 87). Conra d presented H eart of D arkness in similar term s when com menting that `it is experience pushed a little (and only a very little) beyond the actual facts of the case for the perfectly legitimate, I believe, purpose of bringing it hom e to the minds of the reader’ (Conra d, 1917, p. ix). W hile Benjamin presents the novel and storytelling as antagonistic m odes of narrative, the presentation of narration in the form of storytelling in H eart of D arkness enables the text to hold in tension features of both . T his is achieved by presenting a com m unity of shared values represented by the ® gure of the ship, a central device in Conrad’s ® ction w hich, as W illiams (1971, p. 141) suggests, enables him to explore questions of individual conduct within a com m unity which shares an agreed schem e of values: The ship in Conra d has this special quality, which was no lon ger ordinarily available to m ost novelists. It is a know able com munity of a transparent kind. The ship has in the m ain a clear and shared social purpose and an essentially unquestioned customary morality, expressed in fellow-feeling and in law. In H eart of D arkness there are two such ships which enable a sense of isolation to be dissembled throu gh the constru ction of a sense of com munity: the steam er, on board which Marlow is able to keep him self together by having something to do, and where in turn throu gh the com mon purpose of work on the ship he com es to recognise dimly some shared humanity with the native helmsman; and the N ellie , where M arlow is safely able to tell his story amongst a group who share basic bonds of experience and conviction. H eart of D arkness is thus presented as if it were an essentially spoken perform ance, so that the text is m ade to appear merely as the written transcription of a set of stories which are orally transmitted. The text invites its readers to share in the com panionship of those on board the N ellie by taking their place w ithin the same com munity of storytellers and listeners of w hich M arlow is but one part. If one effect of this is to conceal `the solitude of writing behind the com monality of conversing’ (Tanner, 1978, p. 105), then the concom itant effect is the interpellation of the faithful reader as not really being a reader of a text at all. H eart of D arkness is a text w hich is endeavouring to efface its own written-ness (Said, 1974, p. 130). The paradoxes w hich result from this effort are held in tension by the description of both M arlow and K urtz as having no presence other than that of disembodied voices, emphasising the text’s representation of narrative as essentially oral. Simultaneously, by presenting these voices as disembodied, and not therefore irreducibly tied to any particular location, the text establishes the discursive condition for these voices to be inscribed in w riting in order to be subsequently recovered and heard once again. By sealing the circulation of stories into a com munity of shared values, the effacement of writing also work s to expel wom en, as ® gures of disruption and difference, from that

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circuit. The causes of the collapse of personal identity are persistently em bodied in H eart of D arkness in feminine form , and against this both M arlow himself and the text’s own constru ction present the telling of stories as one of those activities which can secure the integrity of m asculine identity. The corollary of this is that narration must be established in speci® cally m asculine terms by the exclusion of the feminine presence. Figures of femininity thus function in H eart of D arkness as `prosopopeia of noise’ (Serres, 1982, p. 67). In order for knowledge to circulate within a dialogic circuit of speaker and listener, a background against w hich the inform ation or meaning in the foreground stands out as intelligible and com prehensible must be posited. Figures of difference must, therefore, be simultaneously excluded from and represented in the circuit. This contra dictory ® guration of difference becomes a condition for the circulation of meaning within relations of sameness, but also means the constant presence within the circuit of a disruptive potential which threatens the circulation of meaning (Serres, pp. 65± 70). In H eart of D arkness , the personi® ed wilderness and representations of delusional femininity serve as the ® gures of `noise’ against w hich the signi® cance of Marlow ’ s narrative takes shape (London, 1989, pp. 236± 237). They are also, by extension, represented as the always present threat to the circulation of narrative and to the form of masculine identity which is secured by the reproduction of that exclusive circuit.

Figuring F em ininity

One of the enduring tropes of W estern colonial discourses deployed in H eart of D arkness is that of cannibalism, a `m ark of unregenerate savagery’ (H ulm e, 1986, p. 3) and `a key m etaphor of outrageous transgression’ (W arner, 1994, p. 70) which articulates various fears and fantasies of hybridity and monstrosity. Marlow ’ s description of the cannibals on board the steam er is the occasion for re¯ ection on the founding value of his personal ethic of con duct: restraint. The cannibals in H eart of D arkness are presented as adm irable ® gures. M arlow wonders why he and his com panions have not been eaten by these m en, and he can think of only one reason: And I saw that something restraining, one of those human secrets that baf¯ e probability, had com e into play there¼ YesÐ I looked at them as you would on any human being with a curiosity of their impulses, motives, capacities, weaknesses, when brought to the test of an inexorable physical necessity. R estraint! W hat possible restraint? W as it superstition, disgust, patience, fearÐ or some kind of primitive honou r? (p. 43) The them e of cannibalism enables M arlow to con® rm the overriding signi® cance of restraint as the very basis of keeping body and soul together when norm al social conventions are absent. The particular form of restraint which M arlow practices is work, which for him is an individual act and a paradigm for self-fashioning, providing as it does `the chance to ® nd yourself’ (p. 31). W ork is how M arlow im agines he can weave a frame of reference to secure his ow n identity in extreme situations. His work ethic, em bodying his com mitment to the value of restraint, stands in stark contrast to the conduct of Kurtz, in whom he sees `the incon ceivable mystery of a soul that knew no restraint, no faith, and no fear’ (p. 66). Upon observing the heads which decorate K urtz’ s com pound, M arlow concludes that these `showed that M r. K urtz lacked restraint in the grati® cation of his various lusts’ (p. 57), and this sm all character ¯ aw had been exploited by the corrosive powers of the w ilderness. W ork functions as Marlow ’ s reality principle, the

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m eans by which grati® cation is deferred, in contra st to K urtz’ s lack of restraint, which has opened him up to a void within himself in w hich his desire has turned demonic. According to Rawson (1985, p. 20), the discourse of cannibalism tends to work in tw o opposite directions: on the one hand the literal imputation of cannibalism serves to identify non-W estern peoples as bestial and savage; on the oth er, the m etapho rical insinuation of the cannibalism of the tyrant has long served a critical function by suggesting that it is the con querors who are more savage than the savages, more cannibalistic than the cannibals. This play between m etaphorical and literal imputations of cannibalism is evident in H eart of D arkness . The cannibals do not actually eat M arlow, but their cannibalism is established as real nonetheless by their very own w ords, con® rm ing Hulme’s claim (1993, pp. 183± 184) that cannibalism has real historical existence as a discursive effect even in the absence of actual acts of eating human ¯ esh. By com parison to them, Kurtz em erges as the more cannibalistic, if only metaphorically, an implication which con® rm s Marlow ’ s convictions about restraint. As M cClure suggests (1978), this ethic is inscribed in the veryform of Marlow ’s narrative, with its interruptions, hesitations, and detours, in stark contra st to K urtz, whose speaking and writing are marked by an `unbounded eloquence’. M arlow m etaphorically represents K urtz’ s eloquence as a cannibalistic impulse upon seeing him in the ¯ esh for the ® rst time: I saw him open his mouth w ideÐ it gave him a weirdly voracious aspect as though he had wanted to swallow all the air, all the earth, all the m en before him. (p. 59) M arlow evokes the very same image at the mom ent of his meeting with Kurtz’ s ® ance to express his sense that the pow er of darkness w as now encroaching upon the placidity of the im perial metropolis itself: I had a vision of him on the stretcher, opening his m outh voraciously as if to devour all the earth with all its mankind. (p. 72) Rawson notes that the metaphorical imputation of cannibalism to the dom inant ® gure tends not to be accompanied by imputation of the literal deed itself. In even the m ost realistic writing on the topic, cannibalism `has alm ost always been subjected to ª derealisingº stylisations and circum ventions of various kinds’ (1985, p. 20). This, too, is a feature of the treatment of cannibalism in H eart of D arkness , in which Kurtz’ s atavistic and ravenous desires result in `unspeakable rites’ which ® nally rem ain unspeci® ed. This `deep cultural reticence about the literal deed’ (Rawson, 1992, p. 12) accom panying the use of m etaphors of cannibalism is the condition of this trope being able to represent a num ber of displaced themes, such as proscribed and proh ibited sexualities and passions, exploitation and barbarity, and fears and fantasies of absorption and incorporation. In this text, it is a fear of the dissolution of masculine identity that is articulated through the rhetoric of cannibalism. Marlow assures his audience that it was the wilderness w hich had awakened in K urtz instincts best kept dorm ant and `beguiled his soul beyond the bonds of permitted aspirations.’ (p. 65). The wilderness is the manifestation of the external evil force which en¯ am es the capacity for evil within each individual soul, and Kurtz’ s encounter w ith it is persistently presented as an encounter with an overbearing feminine Other. If `darkness’ represents the corru pt, evil, and im moral forces which secretly inhabit the project of empire, then it is signi® cant that, as H illis M iller (1990, p. 191) observes, `darkness’ ultim ately com es to be represented `as a woman w ho unm ans all those m ale questors w ho try to dominate her’ . M arlow ’s restraint is the bulwark he erects against this

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fear of being unmanned, and his narrative af® rms the value of securing masculine integrity by ensuring sharp differentiation between m en and w om en. In H eart of D arkness , the landscape is feminised throu gh a persistent rh etoric of personi® cation (Miller, 1990, p. 191) [3]. The landscape is ® guratively constru cted as an entity w hich speaks and acts, as both witness and accuser, and is con sequently m ade to appear as som ething which is alive. Above all this personi® cation of the landscape w orks through the projection of a face on to the landscape: `the sunlit face of the land’ (p. 35) is an intimation of an ominous patience, which ® lls M arlow with the perception that `[i]t looked at you with a vengeful aspect’ (p. 36). His suspicion is not simply that there is someon e in the forest look ing at him, but that it is the forest itself which is watching him. The rhetorical personi® cation of the landscape animates the w ilderness, gives it life, and it is this w hich M arlow presents as the source of his unease as he travelled up-river. The heavily sexualised signi® cance of K urtz’ s undoing by the wilderness and M arlow ’s ethic of restraint is underscored above all by the account M arlow provides of the `wild and gorgeous apparition’ of a native woman he observes from the steamer: She walked with measured steps, draped in striped and fringed cloth s, treading the earth proudly with a slight jingle and ¯ ash of barbarous ornam ents. She carried her head high, her hair w as done in the shape of a helmet, she had brass leggings to the knees, brass wire gauntlets to the elbow, a crim son spot on her tawny cheek, innumerable necklaces of glass beads on her neck, bizarre things, charms, gifts of witch-m en, that hung about her, glittered and trembled at every step. She must have had the value of several elephant tusks upon her. She was savage and superb, w ild-eyed and magni® cent; there was something ominous and stately in her deliberate progress. And in the hush that had fallen suddenly upon the whole sorrow ful land, the im m ense w ilderness, the colossal b ody of the fecund and m y sterious life seem ed to look at her, pensive, as though it had b een looking at an im age of its ow n teneb rous and passionate soul . She came abreast to the steam er, stood still, and faced us. H er long shadow fell to the water’ s edge. H er face had a tragic and ® erce aspect of wild sorrow and of dumb pain mingled with the fear of some struggling, half-shaped resolve. She stood look ing at us without a stir and like the w ilderness itself, with an air of brood ing over an inscrutable purpose. (p. 60, emphasis added) The wilderness is here ® guratively embodied in the form of the native w om an, and simultaneously personi® ed as a particular type of fem ininity. This w om an is the ® gure for the fearful all-consum ing embrace by wilderness and darkness which M arlow identi® es as having been the cause of K urtz’ s m ental and physical collapse, and from which he is protecte d only by his restraint: Suddenly she opened her bared arm s and threw them up rigid above her head as though in an uncontro llable desire to touch the sky, and at the same time the swift shadows darted out on the earth, swept around on the river, gathering the steamer into a shadow y embrace. (pp. 60± 61) And the sexualised nature of K urtz’ s fall, rhetorically established throu gh the feminisation of the wilderness, is underscored when the Russian harlequin tells Marlow that this wom an is a close con ® dante of K urtz himselfÐ she was his m istress, his Queen. That Kurtz’ s fall is constructed around a fear of the feminine Other is con® rmed when one considers that the fem inised personi® cation of the wilderness and the discourse of cannibalism are articulated together in Marlow ’ s narrative. He w as particularly struck by K urtz’ s baldness:

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The wilderness had patted him on the head, and behold, it w as like a ballÐ an ivory ball; it had caressed him , andÐ lo!Ð he had w ithered; it had taken him , loved him , em b raced him , got into his veins, consum ed his ¯ esh, and sealed his soul to its ow n b y the inconce ivab le cerem onies of som e devilish initiation . (p. 49, emphasis added) The insinuation that K urtz’ s relation to the native w oman is a sexual one is ® nally con® rm ed by the representation of the wilderness of which she is the em bodim ent as cannibalistically devouring him . T he play between metaphorical and literal imputations of cannibalism establishes that it was K urtz’ s own urge to devour the world which led to his ow n self being swallow ed by the w ilderness. The tropes of cannibalistic transgression are com bined with the representation of the wilderness to present K urtz’ s predicament as the result of an encounter with an all-powerful fem inine sexuality which is the cause of the loss of masculine de® nition. And if K urtz’ s transgression of the sexualised boundary of racial difference leads to a loss of self-identity, Marlow ’s story concludes by con® rming the value of m aintaining sexual and racial identity by keeping wom en in their proper place.
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The personi® cation of the w ilderness in H eart of D arkness is the means by which subject-status is transferred to an inanimate entity, the geographical landscape, in the same move as that landscape is fem inised. The corolla ry of this rhetorical transfer is that the subject-status of wom en them selves is denied in the text, so that women’s identity as em bodiments of both darkness and illusion is established in a discourse in which they are spoken ab out but are not themselves allocated a space of enunciation within the circuit of narrative. Marlow ’ s journey is facilitated by women at every turn. His position with the trading com pany is originally secured for him by an aunt w hose touching faith in the ideals of imperialism serves as the occasion for one of his re¯ ections on w om en’ s place in the general scheme of things: It’ s queer how out of touch with truth wom en are! They live in a w orld of their own, and there had never been anything like it, and never can be. It is too beautiful altogether and if they were to set it up it would go to pieces before the ® rst sunset. Some confou nded fact, w e m en have been living conte ntedly with ever since the day of creation, would start up and knock the whole thing over. (p. 16) M arlow ’s story is told to a group of m en because this is a story w hich is on ly ® t for their ears and that only their hearts could bear. Only men are capable of living with the full and awful truth of the em ptiness at the heart of human existence which is M arlow ’s theme. Con rad identi® ed the ® nal scene of M arlow ’s narrative as pivotal for giving the story m ore than prosaic signi® cance, when com menting on his method of con structing ® ctions in which the whole story falls into place in the ® nal incident, as in `the last pages of H eart of D arkness where the interview of the m an and the girl locks inÐ as it wereÐ the whole 30000 words of narrative description into on e suggestive view of a whole phase of life and m akes of that story something quite on anothe r plane than an anecdote of a m an w ho went m ad in the Centre of Africa’ (1986, p. 417). The value of M arlow’ s story is secured in this ® nal m eeting, in which what is af® rm ed is that `theyÐ the women I meanÐ are out of itÐ should be out of it’ (p. 49). To read H eart of D arkness either as historical

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testimony, political critique, or moral allegory without attending to the w ays in which such extra-textual signi® cance is established through the exclusion of women from the circuit of narrative, as dramatised in the m eeting of M arlow and the Intended, is unproblematically to reproduce its gendered distribution of narrative pow er. M arlow ’s story only has value because of its exclusivity, an exclusivity in which the reader is invited to share by colluding in his act of w ithholding. The condition for M arlow ’s story to those on board the N ellie on this occasion lies in his withholding from the Intended the full truth of his encounter with K urtz, which is thereby con® rmed as valuable knowledge to be shared only with select interlocutors. Upon his return to the sepulchral European city from which he originally departed, M arlow slow ly parted with those artefacts of Kurtz’ s with which he had been entrusted:

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All that had been Kurtz’ s had passed out of m y hands: his soul, his body, his station, his plans, his ivory, his career. T here rem ained only his m emory and his IntendedÐ and I wanted to give that up too to the past, in a wayÐ to surren der personally all that remained of him with me to that oblivion which is the last word of our com mon fate. (p. 71) Yet this account of his m otivations for ® nally visiting her turns out to be a m isrepresentation. Far from giving up the care of Kurtz’ s m emory, when faced with the Intended he ensures that it will not be shared with this ® gure of fem inine innocence and that it w ill rem ain instead in his possession. This contra diction betw een what M arlow says of his m otivations and his description of his actual deeds serves to underscore the sense that protecting Kurtz’ s m emory remains an obligation that he seems unable to relinquish however m uch he apparently w ould like to. Marlow lied to the Intended in telling her that the last word Kurtz pronoun ced was `your name’ (p. 75) [4]. He justi® es his deceit as an act of keeping the Intended safe from the encroaching darkness, which according to his own account, threatened to engulf her at the moment of their m eeting. M arlow describes how, as he stood on the Intended’s doorstep, he had a vision of K urtz, of the wilderness and the conquering darkness, a vision which accom panies him into the house: `It was a mom ent of triumph for the wilderness, an invading and vengeful rush which, it seemed to m e, I would have to keep back alone for the salvation of another soul.’ (p. 72) It is Marlow ’s intim ations of K urtz’ s ghostly presence there in the room alongside him, `his death and her sorrow ’ (p. 73) occupying the same space in his perception, which justi® es his decision not to share the full truth with her. The repetition of the personi® ed rh etoric of darkness in the meeting with the Intended enables him to present his lie as the only possible choice open to him , as he seeks his audience’ s absolution and com plicity in the lie and his own fantasy of salvation (Parry, 1983, p. 38). Marlow tells his listeners that as the Intended recalled the persuasive power of K urtz’ s eloquence, he heard in her words the echo of `a voice speaking from beyond the threshold of an eternal darkness’ (p. 74). This is the voice of Kurtz’ s ® nal judgement, `The horror! the horror!’ (p. 68), which for M arlow represents a `suprem e mom ent of com plete knowledge’ (p. 68), an `af® rmation, a m oral victory’ (p. 70) in the face of nothingness. If what makes K urtz a rem arkable ® gure in spite of his actions is that he m anaged to give utterance to this experience, then loyally guarding his memory requires that M arlow carefully police the circulation of his words: by detaching the words `Exterm inate all the brutes’ from Kurtz’ s otherw ise altruistic report for the `I nternational S ociety for the S up pression of S avage C ustom s ’ (p. 51), making it ® t to be received by those for

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whom brutality and idealism remain antithetical poles; and by not sharing his ® nal words with the Intended. Doing so would make her vulnerable to `the triumphant darkness from w hich I could not have defended her’ (p. 74). T his decision enables Marlow to fashion a heroic identity for himself and his listeners, for they, too, have now had revealed to them the awful truth which means they m ust live with the knowledge of `darkness’. The value of this knowledge is established by virtue of the fact that it is not available to all, and its selectivity is constituted by Marlow ’s own actions. This constru ction of the carefully proscribed dimensions of narrative circulation reveals that the affective dimensions of the text work to offer im aginative resolution to certain form s of masculine anxiety only by staging the `psychic penury of wom en [as] a necessary condition for the heroism of m en’ (Straus, 1986, p. 125). If the critical impact of M arlow ’s narrative lies in his revealing the hypocritical pow er of imperialism’ s rh etoric to mask an awful reality, then this critical force is con tained by his reinvestment in the very same feature when he m obilises the deceptive power of language to m anipulate the Intended and simultaneously confirm the significance of his own narrative.
U n-Intend ed R ead ings H eart of D arkness explores zones of liminality where the boundaries of identity begin to dissolve, but does so only to reaffirm all the m ore stron gly the need for men to maintain their masculine identity throu gh sharp differentiation from women. W omen are explicitly excluded from the circuits of narrative in which m en confirm for each other the value of knowing the awful emptiness of the dark recesses of the human heart. W hat sort of m asculine togetherness is it that is structured by such a stark and asymmetrical binary opposition between m asculinity and fem ininity? Identification between men is articulated in this text throu gh triangular relations betw een m ale protagonists and women (cf. Sedgwick, 1985, pp. 20± 27). In M arlow ’s story, his relationship with K urtz is m ediated by the figures of the feminised wilderness, the native w oman, and the Intended. Given its first-person narrative em bedded within a frame-narrative, involving a com m unication between a male protagonist and other m en, the substance of which includes a discourse about women, H eart of D arkness shares  structural affinities w ith the form of confessional re cit analysed by Segal (1988, p. 9). The confessional m ode of such narratives invites the reader to join in the collusion of m en in excluding the fem ale-subject from their discourse:

She is the object, not the subject, of its speech, and to the pattern of m ale doubles within the text there corresponds, essentially, an implied reader and implied or intended author who are also male. (Segal, 1988, p. 11)
H eart of D arkness constru cts storytelling as a strictly m asculine privilege, and w ith its doubling of K urtz and M arlow , has just this sort of `intended’ reader, and its critical reception has been often characterised by readings which do indeed con sent to play the roles marked out by the text itself. Straus (1986, p. 126) argues that the dom inant form of masculine com mentary on the text involves an identification on the part of the critic with the m ale protagon ists, who can then share in the pleasure of entering into the m asculine circuit of com munication on matters of high moral, m etaphysical, or artistic importan ce. Segal suggests that by identifying the third person positions which are excluded subject-status in narratives yet which are critical to their structure and significanceÐ by taking up the position of the unintended reader Ð it is possible to reveal what the text does

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not wish to say about itself by reading against its own interpellative demand. It is this sort of possibility that Straus (1986, p. 134) invokes w hen she suggests that `what the woman reader can ª doº is to recognise that in H eart of D arkness women are used to deny, distort, and censor men’s passionate love for on e another’ . Straus appeals to Freud’ s notion of `narcissistic identification’ , `which is closer to hom osexual object-choice than to the heterosexual kind’ (Straus, 1986, p. 132), to describe the bond between Marlow and K urtz. Having raised the issue of masculine desire, however, she does not fully pursue it. The result is that her argum ent leaves intact the implication that patriarchal m isogyny is really latent `hom osexuality’, an implication which remains essentially hom ophobic [5]. Straus’s reading of the traces of desire in Marlow ’s narrative of identification with K urtz m isapprehends the precise relation between identification and desire in his story. For her, the staging of identification hides what are in fact relations of desire. Rather than reading identification and desire as related in this way, I w ant to trace how they are articulated in this narrative in op position to each other. Sedgwick (1991, p. 210) argues that m odern constru ctions of m ale heterosexual entitlement depend upon an unstable `self-ignoran ce in men as to the significance of their desire for other men’. M arlow does suffer a form of self-ignora nce, evident in the distance which separates his avowed motivations and justifications from his actual acts. And his lie to the Intended does indeed finally em erge as an act of jealo usy by which he keeps the m emory of K urtz from the one person who claims to have know n him better than any other and to have loved him, an act made to ensure that the two shall not be together (p. 73). M arlow justifies his lie by reinvoking the image of the conquering feminine figures of darkness, enabling him to present his ow n wilful econom y with the truth as an act of salvation. The Intended, dressed in mourning black, not on ly resembles the native wom an in appearance, she embodies the very same gestures, and with them the very same significances: She put out her arms as if after a retreating figure, stretching them black and with clasped pale hands across the fading and narrow sheen of the window. Never see him ! I saw him clearly enough then. I shall see this eloquent phantom as long as I live and I shall see her too, a tragic and fam iliar Shade resembling in this gesture another one, tragic also and bedecked with powerless charms, stretching bare brow n arms over the glitter of the infernal stream , the stream of darkness. (p. 75) The lie em erges as the means by which M arlow’ s restraint finally secures his integrity by enabling him to resist this em brace of the fem inine O ther which m irrors that of the wilderness which w as the undoing of K urtz. The final scene establishes that M arlow ’s difference from Kurtz lies in his ability to restrain desire. But the point of this differentiation is also the point at which his identification w ith K urtz is secured. M arlow is finally able to identify with Kurtz, despite his retrograde actions, by disavowing that feature of K urtz’ s character, unrestrained desire, w hich he presents as being behind his fall. Both M arlow ’s restraint and Kurtz’ s lust for gratification are presented in ways which confirm that desire exists only in a single dimension: between m en and women. D esire is presented in H eart of D arkness as essentially and singularly heterosexual. It follow s that M arlow ’s lie, his final act of restraint, simultaneously works as a disavowal of the place of desire in his identification with K urtz. H eart of D arkness characteristically structures masculine narrative hom osociality by setting up conceptual distinctions between `m en’ s identification (with men) and their desire (for w om en)’ (Sedgwick, 1991, p. 62). H owever negative H eart of D arkness may be in its

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judgement of relations between men and wom en, and however exclusive these relations are made to appear, it is by virtue of their being presented so graphically as relations of desire that heterosexuality is posited and m aintained throu ghout the text as the structuring principle of all relations of desire. By constru cting female± male relations as relations of desire, relations of identification between m en as they are articulated throu gh narrative are clearly dem arcated from any taint of desire, so that Marlow ’s identification with K urtz appears as on e wholly w ithout an affective dim ension. The rh etorical relations through which the reader’ s assent to the text’ s patriarchal values of narrative authority is sought prohibit any articulation of relations of desire between m en. If, then, the dynam ics of identification which H eart of D arkness sets in play are indeed patriarchal and m isogynist, it is because of the articulation of m asculine hom osocial desire in specifically modern heterosexual hom ophobic term s.

A llegories of R esp onsib ility

I have considered H eart of D arkness an allegory of reading in so far as it presents reading as an activity guided by an ethic of fidelity, accord ing to w hich individuals respond to what is forced upon them as their own choice. H eart of D arkness is often taken as an allegory of reading, as a text w hich them atises textuality itself (e.g. Brooks, 1984; Todorov, 1989; Cunningham , 1994). Such readings are characterised by a loyalty to the text w hich requires accepting the authority of its own meta-comm entary at face value. Follow ing Johnson (1987, p. 18), moments of self-interpretation in the text are not to be granted authority, but rather taken as points at w hich responsib ility for the w ork of reading is throw n upon the reader. N o text is empowered to force its readers to com ply w ith the subject-effects inscribed within it, yet neither can the pattern of preferred reading positions be ignored if a text is to be addressed critically. Thus, perhaps paradoxically, Johnson (1994, p. 31) also recom mends a `hyper-fidelity’ to the text as the m eans of pursuing subversive readings. Such a strategy suspends the interpretative sovereignty usually invested in the act of reading in order to follow closely the weave of the text and identify moments at which it addresses uncon ditional dem ands for assent to the reader. Such an effort to follow `what has to happen’ reveals H eart of D arkness to be a text in which the dim ensions of narrative space are organised according to specific gendered principles. To respond to the text’s demand for loyalty would be to affirm the value of a form of masculine identity prem ised upon the discursive m aintenance of asymm etrical binary sexual difference. This affirmation is the condition of admission into the select arena in which issues of the very highest m etaphysical importan ce are discussed. A reading that follow s the imperatives of the text up to the point of decision and response is one which cannot presum e to sit in judgem ent from a detached position, but one which acknowledges com plicity with what it endeavours to open to critical scrutiny as the very con dition of finally dissenting from the text and its im plications.

A ckno w led gem ents

I w ould like to thank Sophie Bowlby, Cindi Katz, A drian Passmore, M ike Samers, and tw o anonym ous referees for helpful advice on an earlier version of this paper.

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[1] C hristopher M iller (1985, pp. 169± 83) treats this feature of the text as an exam ple of the persisten t represe ntation of `A frica’ as an absenc e and nullity in Europ ean discourses. [2] F urther referen ces to this edition are included in the text. [3] C on rad ’s represe ntation of the African landscape reinscribes the gen dered conventions of late nineteenthcentury ad venture fiction. See Low (1990), Phillips (1995), Stott (1989) an d W hite (1993). [4] Thus, even the form in which M arlow re-repre sents his lie confirm s that the proper nam es of wom en, as the m arks of their sub ject-status, rem ain unuttered an d unutterable w ithin the confines of the com munity inside of which K urtz’s final w ord s and their dark sign ificance can circulate. [5] Sedgwick calls into question the identification as: flatly, transhistorically `hom osexu al’ of the m ale hom osoc ial bonds that largely stru cture patriarch al culture. Precisely to the degree that this is a potent polem ical move, it is a dangerou s and dem ogogic on e: its rhetorical kick depending on and hence reinforc ing our ow n historically sp ecific culture’s distaste, not in the first plac e for patriarchal oppression, but for hom osexu ality itself. (1994, p. 49)

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