見つめる「闇」/見つめられる「闇」 : Heart of Darknessにおける「闇」
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概要
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Although Heart of Darkness is based on Joseph Conrad's own journey to the Congo, it differs from the actual experiences in its creation of several fictional characters. The highly symbolic character Mr Kurtz makes the story ambiguous and prevents the readers from receiving definite answers to some of their questions. "Why did Mr Kurtz die?" is one of such questions. Since there is no direct description of the cause of his death, the readers have to be fully alert to the subtleties of Marlow's narrative and even try to dig up the covert plot to get access to the answer. This paper explores the cause of Mr Kurtz's death and discovers three possibilities: He was killed by the natural world as a revenge for his awful invasion; He was murdered by the General Manager because of his excellence in collecting ivory; He destroyed himself for discovering his unknown inner self. On the surface level, there is little connection among these explanations, but further thinking reveals that they have one thing in common. As has been widely accepted, Heart of Darkness is rich in darkness. We can recognize a great variety of darkness in the book, such as the darkness of the jungle, the darkness of human relationships and the darkness of one's own inner self. If we keep in mind this point, the common factor among these three possibilities for Mr Kurtz's death seems clear: the representation of that darkness. In all cases, the darkness is represented as the form gazing at Mr Kurtz and at the same time being gazed at by him. For instance, the darkness in nature gazed at Mr Kurtz with hatred and evil intentions, and Kurtz gazed back at it, challenging it. In fact, it is this intense and ceaseless exchange of the gaze with the darkness that is fatal for Kurtz. Considering the fact that Heart of Darkness was written at the very end of the nineteenth century, that is, the beginning of the decline of the British Empire, it is interesting to note that Conrad represented the darkness in relation to the gaze. It may be said that he himselfsensed the darkness of that period gazing at him and he gazed back at it by himself.
- 東京女子大学の論文
- 2000-03-10