“He had tied a bit of white worsted round his neck”: Focusing on Details in Heart of Darkness
There are only a limited number of objects in Heart of Darkness and they may at first glance look like details. A closer look reveals however that they are essential, not only because they create circuits of meaning throughout the novella which point at hidden aspects of colonialism but also because...
में बचाया:
| में प्रकाशित: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/fathom, |
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| मुख्य लेखक: | |
| स्वरूप: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| भाषा: | Anglais |
| प्रकाशित: |
FATHOM
2019
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| विषय: | |
| ऑनलाइन पहुंच: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| सारांश: | There are only a limited number of objects in Heart of Darkness and they may at first glance look like details. A closer look reveals however that they are essential, not only because they create circuits of meaning throughout the novella which point at hidden aspects of colonialism but also because Conrad’s aesthetic strategy rests largely on these apparently unimportant objects – details through which the horror’s daily manifestations are made visible, details that may re-introduce the human element into the picture. This article analyses how a limited number of objects shed a revealing light onto the novella’s meaning. Two instances of particular importance (ivory and the white worsted round the dying black man’s throat in the “grove of death” scene) are analyzed in detail in order to show that what could not be conveyed through facts when the novella was first published is made sensible thanks to the disruptive presence of apparently insignificant objects. Drawing on postcolonial theory, art criticism and R. Barthes’s “punctum”, the paper underlines how focusing on details forces the readers to realize that the ethical and moral questions raised by the novella are questions that concern them directly. |
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