Cultural Psychosis on the Frontier: The Work of the Darkness in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness
2000; University of North Texas Press; Volume: 32; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1934-1512
Autores Tópico(s)Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies
ResumoTherein consists most elementary formal definition of psychosis: massive presence of some real that fills out and blocks perspective openness which is constitutive of reality. Slavoj Zizek, Grimaces of Real(1) Heart of Darkness has perversely proved a central document in postcolonial discourse. As Homi K. Bhabha puts it, the of Conrad's Heart of Darkness falls on so many texts of postcolonial pedagogy.(2) Notably, Bhabha cites Edward W. Said's Culture and Imperialism as an exemplary example of such a text: Heart of Darkness is novel that invites most comment and interpretation. It serves as a resource for many of central arguments in book. In Said's early discussions of complex address and consolidation of imperial idea as ideology, Heart of Darkness features prominently. In later, postcolonial perspectives that deal with resistance and opposition, Said demonstrates anxiety of generated by novel on anti-colonialist fictions of Ngugi wa Thiongo, The River Between and Tayeb Salih, Season of Migration to North.(3) When we turn to Said's book, Bhabha's comments are clearly borne out as Conrad's novel takes on a privileged and at times pervasive role. Importantly, however, there is a particular tension running throughout Said's discussion and use of Heart of Darkness to which Bhabha does not immediately direct our attention. This tension emerges from Said's recognition of an ambivalent status afforded colonialism in Conrad's novel, as it at once offers critics a perspective from which can be gained critical leverage on of colonialism and yet is itself one of most concentrated and influential documents of modern colonial discourse.(4) In terms of former, Heart of Darkness has commonly been seen to present a subversive perspective through Marlow's perversion of West's image of itself as place of light and civilization. After his up-river journey into heart of darkness, Western metropolis is revealed to Marlow cloaked in folds of darkness he encountered at ends of earth: white woman, Intended, resembles Kurtz's African woman; tall houses lining city streets appear in profile of posts with human heads on them outside Kurtz's Inner Station; and pounding of his heart echoes beat of primitive drums heard in depths of jungle. As Bhabha himself observes, in Marlow's revelation of darkness at home in very heart of Europe through such a discourse of daemonic doubling, he beholds everyday reality of Western metropolis through veil of colonial fantasm.(5) In doing so Marlow performs a perversion of West's ideal-image of itself as true seat of civilization and light--a perversion which offers a certain critical leverage for interrupting perpetuation of this self-image. In line with latter pole of ambivalent status of colonialism recognized by Said, long shadow of Conrad's novel has also been seen in far less positive terms. Most famously, Chinua Achebe has argued Heart of Darkness constitutes a document of high European racism to be rejected and purged of all cultural currency. In these terms long shadow of its influence is felt more as a dark mantle to be cast off than a critically enlightening experience. For Achebe, Africa functions in novel as a foil for Europe, constituting a negative, blank space onto which is projected all that Europe does not want to see in itself, everything that is abhorrent and abject.(6) The difference between this position and former, which locates a subversive potential in text, has largely to do with respective degree of attention paid to place of Africa in Heart of Darkness. It is with place of Africa Achebe is notably most concerned, focusing on way this place is marked by racial abjection. …
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