Blanchot's view on the status of the narrative voice is very pertinent to any discussion of Heart of Darkness. “Something indeterminate” and “ghostly” implies a lack of stability and centrality which is rendered strongly in the novel by the use of multiple narrators within a frame narrative structure. This essay will explore each narrative layer in turn and show how each adds a layer of uncertainty and doubt to the narrative being told. It removes any sense of a fixed center in the work which belies any attempt to carefully question and interrogate the speaking voice. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The real "I" in the text is the man sitting on the Nellie listening to Marlow's voice. However, this “I” is an unknown quantity. Barthes defines the creation of character as "when identical seeds pass through the same proper name several times and seem to fix themselves on it." However, no such form is provided here. It is only the occasional use of "I" that allows us to easily distinguish this first-person narrator from a third-person narrative. It takes until the fourth paragraph to even establish this 'I' figure, before this the more inclusive and therefore fragmented pronouns 'we' and 'our' are used. The nebulosity of this entry has led many to identify this unknown narrator, who barely figures in the tale, as analogous to Joseph Conrad himself. The tale certainly follows closely Conrad's personal experience traveling up the Congo River in 1890. This device may have been used to create some distance between him and the controversial narrative he was telling. The story is told to the figure of Self, the Lawyer and the Accountant, who would benefit from colonization while living in ignorance of its excesses. The controversial aspect of the novel begins from Marlow's first speech: "And this was one of the dark places of the earth." "Dark" in the context of the novel is analogous to uncivilized and this is emphasized in subsequent descriptions of the darkness of the Thames to the Roman colonizers, reversing the traditional Social Darwinian logic that Europeans are "fitter" than those they enslave. This implies a cyclical aspect of colonization, which implies that as the Roman Empire colonized and then fell, so do European empires fall, replaced by the very people who were once oppressed. However, this autobiographical reading does not generate clarity and stability in the narrative voice. Instead it simply adds another layer of complication to the entry, where the figure of the "I" is a battle between multiple people vying for supremacy in the work. This battle can never be resolved, meaning that the narrative “I” is inherently ever-changing with no fixed center to refer to. The instability of the narrative voice is accentuated by the fact that the story we hear is told by another character, Marlow. Blanchot argues that "the narrator is not a historian". Its song is the context in which the event that happens there comes to the word, in the presence of memory.' This implies the power that the narrator has to manipulate the story: "in presence", highlighting that the narrator has no obligation to follow the events as they occurred in his memory. And these memories will also be distorted, as we see from the phrase "it's strange how far women are from the truth." Peter Brooks observes that "If Marlow is merely voice, then the authority of his narrative depends entirely on his speech act, on the rhetoric" and it is clear in this case his views on women are creating a prejudicein his narrative, moving the narrative further. far from the truth of the situation. This power of interpretation can also be extended to the anonymous "I" in the text who would have the same power to omit and interpret Marlow's story as Marlow had over his own story. The fact that Marlow literally disappears into the context of the story is emblematic of this narrative power: "I listened on guard for the phrase, for the word, that would give me the key to the slight discomfort inspired by this narrative that seemed to take shape without human lips in the heavy night air.' This phrase has an intoxicating quality. The long forty-word sentence draws the reader into the text and keeps them suspended, while the language creates a sense of dread, 'seemed', 'without' and 'darkness' " all imply uncertainty, and the phrase "without human lips" implies that no narrator actually exists. It highlights how the narrative voice has no inherent truth beyond its recitation, meaning that it is impossible to arrive at a "true" account " of the story. This means that the narrative voice is inherently "indeterminate", as there is no truth to which it refers. This unreliability is further highlighted by its failure to follow a traditional narrative structure in which we move from a state of mystery to one state of clarity. Barthes states that «To narrate is to pose the question as if it were a topic that is delayed in preaching; and when the predicate (truth) arrives, the narrative is over.' However, this "hermeneutic code" does not work for Heart of Darkness, as Marlow fails to offer the reader any resolution to his tale. The inherent mystery created by the first line of dialogue, which serves to catalyze the narrative, is never resolved. A series of what Bathes calls "delays in the flow of speech" are established by repeated failure to meet Kurtz at increasingly internal stations. This delay implies that there is a hermeneutic structure that will lead to a final dispensation of meaning. Even the title suggests it, the word "Heart" implies that there will be a journey towards a discovery at a central point. However, there is no central meaning, and our desire for meaning is mocked by Marlow's lie to the "expected" regarding Kurtz's last words. To this lie she replies: "I knew it, I was sure of it!" He knew it. She was sure." The repetition of his words indicating the narrator's certainty of what we know to be a lie creates irony in the passage. He demands meaning from the story and then constructs it through a lie. The fact that the story has no obvious meaning is prefigured at the beginning of the novel: "the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the story which made it emerge only as a light brings out the haze, resembling one of these misty halos which are sometimes made visible by the ghostly illumination of moonlight.' The phrases "hazy", "glow", and "mist" all imply that the light is indistinct and not entirely visible, which is evidenced by the fact that these indistinct mists are only made visible "sometimes". The lack of a core also means that it will always be illusory and unattainable in its entirety. Marlow's inability to follow traditional narrative rules causes his voice to become "ghostly," as we try to decipher the meaning of a text that refuses to offer the reader any easy solutions to the multitude of questions it raises. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom article from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay David Applebaum argues that "The mind redeems absence by explaining how the voice of poetry is a mere copy and there, 2012)