The significance of language in "Heart of Darkness"
The novel of Josef Conrad, Heart of Darkness, is a rather complex piece of fiction with several layers that intertwine with one another even as the plot develops and reveals itself before its audience. Therefore, before starting to discuss the matter of language and its significance in the novel, we must first agree that language is significant in our world for the reason that language differentiates humans not only from the rest of the animal kingdom, but also from each other, as people from different social backgrounds speak in different ways. In fact, some people can deduce others' background just by hearing them speak. Consequently, if we see how characters with different backgrounds either racially or socially differ from each in Heart of Darkness by their speech, we can probably see other, greater differences between them, amongst anything else.
At the bottom of this ladder of differences are the native Africans. They barely speak at all, save from approximately two occasions. The first one occurs when Marlow and other Pilgrims are travelling up the river to seek Kurtz:
`Aha!' I said, just for good fellowship's sake. `Catch `im,' he snapped, with a bloodshot widening of his eyes and a flash of sharp teeth--`catch `im. Give `im to us.' `To you, eh?' I asked; `what would you do with them?' `Eat `im!' he said curtly, and leaning his elbow on the rail looked out into the fog in a dignified and profoundly pensive attitude. (Heart of Darkness, 40)
Here Marlow seems to show the general and habitual disregard of his peers regarding African native language and culture: to them, all Africans were barely better than animals; even if they are human, they are still potentially dangerous, even cannibalistic. The other instance is even less flattering, it is the infamous "Mistah Kurtz--he dead" (69).
This passage is not typical for Heart of Darkness, because it is one of the two where an African speaks in a European language, but precisely because of that, it illustrates a point about the European treatment of the Africans, encoded into the novel: whenever we "hear" about an African speaking, or doing any other action, it happens through a European's eyes and ears - Marlow's eyes and ears. Marlow, after all, is an almost typical European in this regard: all of his insights relate to the European society, not the African one. As a consequence, the language reflects this: the Africans "speak" only in European language, and only twice or so in the novel, while the rest of times they are either silent or speak in sounds that are described in definitely negative and derogatory ways, including turns of phrase "humming of bees" (63) and "a mute spell" (65). To a European at the turn of the twentieth century, African native language was non-existent, it was not important, and thus, it was an `animal noise' or something that is mute. Neither description is a compliment to the African natives, of course; plus, both demonstrate in a noteworthy way the cultural gulf between the African natives and the European colonizers.
However, even as the language in the novel demonstrates yet another sign of the great social gulf between the Europeans and the Africans, it also fails to demonstrate any difference between the European characters. They all seem to speak in simple, straightforward sentences, such as "They are simple people [...] well, I am glad you came. It took me all my time to keep them off" (53); and "I've been teaching one of the native women about the station. It was difficult. She had a distaste for the work" (18); and "I know--I know. It's all right [...] Come along. It's all right. I am glad" (52).
The three examples quoted above come from different parts of the novel, but they all can be easily interchanged, especially if taken out of context first. Practically all that the Europeans in Africa speak about is positioned about promotions for themselves and their disdain for the African natives and Africa itself. However, here the readers must realize that to the audience, the characters in Heart of Darkness seem not to speak at all. Instead, Marlow does all their speaking for them as the narrator of the novel; at the very least, one can say that a reader sees the events in the novel through Marlow as the latter reminiscences about his adventure in the "Heart of Darkness".
Before or after realizing this, of course, a reader may understand that this lack of shift in perspective is largely responsible for the surface monotony of the story: Marlow just goes on and on, and soon it can be hard to decide who is saying what - was the phrase "I've been teaching one of the native women about the station. It was difficult. She had a distaste for the work" (18) said by a character in Marlow's narration or has the man just invented it, or does the phrase "In a very few hours I arrived in a city that always makes me think of a whited sepulchre" (9) belong to Marlow's imagination or Conrad's own.
There is an "alternative" narrator, the man who observes Marlow and transcribes his story to us. However, that man is almost as two-dimensional as the African natives in Marlow's tales are: he is not described at all, and all of his attention, all that he speaks about, is about Marlow. The "alternative" narrator, the "I" that begins the narration of the novel, can as well be Conrad himself for all that we know about him. Furthermore, the style he uses to describe their immediate situation - centered, of course, on Marlow - strongly reflects on Marlow's language pattern:
There was a pause of profound stillness, then a match flared, and Marlow's lean face appeared worn, hollow, with downwards folds and dropped eyelids with an aspect of concentrated attention; and as he took vigorous draws at his pipe it seemed to retreat and advance out of the night in the regular flicker of the tiny flame. The match went out. (Heart of Darkness, 47)
These four or five lines and two unequal sentences that describe Marlow echo the phrase "In a very few hours I arrived in a city that always makes me think of a whited sepulchre" (9). These examples combine realism with Gothic or supernatural elements - a real city is compared to sepulchre (a tomb); a flame that illuminated a very ordinary face seems to "to retreat and advance out of the night" and create a rather extraordinary atmosphere. Moreover, this is important, because this use of language is significant to the novel in another way, for it shows Conrad's mastery of English, his third language after French and his native Polish.
Now it is time to recap how language is significant to the novel. The answer is essentially in several parts: first, it serves as yet another demonstration among many regarding the differences between Africans and Europeans - the Europeans can speak the "right" way, the Africans cannot; but second, it serves as a reflection of Conrad's mastery of it. As he expertly blurs the lines between himself and Marlow, between Marlow and other European characters, and uses this combined mouthpiece of his to deliver the novel's underlying message about the true heart of darkness - but that was something that every reader of the novel must discover on his or her own.
Bibliography
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Ed. Paul B. Armstrong. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006.