narrator (Watts xxii). Additionally, Watts argues that black people were given speech in the text. He provides examples of where African tribes speak through emotional cries or gestures, and how on other occasions they speak in English. For instance, it is the Managers assistant/boy who informs Marlow of Mr. Kurtz’s death “‘Mistah Kurtz – he dead’” (Conrad 69). Immediately following this horrific scene of the mass death of black people, the Company’s chief accountant is introduced who is a well-dressed, well fed man is working on behalf of the British government. Marlow declares “I respected this fellow” (Conrad 18). This contrasts strikingly with the black people who are dying nearby reflecting both class and race issues. This scene encapsulates the effects of imperialism where the horrifying scene of the mass death of black people is immediately juxtaposed against the symbol of imperialism which is the Company’s Chief accountant. This scene literally demonstrates that lying behind the imperialist’s conquest, which is driven by greed, lies the mass death of innocents. Other critics have linked this scene to psychoanalytic theory, particularly to Freud’s theories concerning the conscious and unconscious. The critic Sharon Sullivan uses Freud’s theory to make the interesting argument that there exists a “conscious recognition of one’s unconscious racist beliefs” which can be applied to Heart of Darkness (Sullivan 213). Taking this to be true then Conrad’s text reflects the reality of the everyday racism, even of unconscious racism and the barbarity of imperialism (Watts xxi). Overall Conrad creates different narrative voices which expose the harsh truth of colonization and reflect the disconnect existing in different realities of race and class (Allen Boone 144).
Conrad also explores with formal experimentation in Heart of Darkness. An example of this is Conrad’s unstructured sense of time in the text. In Heart of Darkness, the passing of chronological time is difficult to gage. This in part is due to the narrative structure of the text, which is told by various narrators. Marlow narrates much of the text but we are given little sense of time passing chronologically on the ship in which Marlow is recounting his tale and these are only briefly alluded to. For example, about half-way through his tale we are reminded of physical or real time when Marlow is interrupted by an unknown speaker amongst the crew; “Try to be civil, Marlow,” growled a voice, and I knew there was at least one listener awake besides myself” (Conrad 34). It is the framed narrator who subtly draws attention to the fact that Marlow is recounting a tale and reminds us that although the time span seems long it is psychological time which seems long rather than physical time. Modernist writers’ experimentation with time was a result of an increasing level of essays and books being published which furthered humanity’s understanding of time. For example, Henri Bergson’s Time and Free Will argues how time is experienced fluidly, rather than linearly and states it is the clock which imposes a chronological order (Bergson 108). Bergson’s work changed our collective understanding of time, particularly its psychological understanding and was often linked to space or relativity.
n Heart of Darkness, Marlow’s psychological space in the story constantly changes though his physical position stays the same. By recounting his journey up the Congo River, the reader inevitable journeys with Marlow too. It is only through the subtle reminders from the other narrator that prompts the reader back to Marlow’s physical reality on the ship. Theories concerning space and time were rapidly developing and expanding during Conrad’s writing of the text such as Einstein’s “Theory of Relativity” expanded our collective understanding of time and space. This allows us to see how Marlow’s individual position changes as it is his psychological presence rather than his physical presence which shifts in the novel.Thus Marlow’s psychological quest for knowledge takes emphasis over his physical journey. Daniel Schwarz argue that an epistemological quest is at the core of Heart of Darkness (Schwarz 23). Marlow’s psychological and epistemological journey begins when he starts to recount his tale. Marlow reflects over his journey and links knowledge with time himself, stating “perhaps all the wisdom, and all the truth, and all sincerity, are just compressed into that inappreciable