Heart of Darkness Theme of Language and Communication

The articulateness and effectiveness of speech plays a large role in the novel. Good articulation and expression ensures understanding between two individuals. However, many of the characters suffer from poor communication. They speak too much, too little, or even in different languages. There is almost a total lack of communication between white men and the black Africans, even Marlow’s cannibals that are effectively part of his crew. For Kurtz, language is a way to justify white man’s superiority over the Africans. For Marlow, language represents a way out of madness – a way to establish contact with other human beings and thus break the isolation and lack of understanding that brings on insanity.

1. What is significant about the manager’s and the brickmaker’s characteristic blabbering? What does it say about their characters?
2. How does Marlow receive information about Kurtz? Are these sources reliable? What expectations does Marlow form about Kurtz based on this hearsay?
3. What is Kurtz’s relationship to language? How does his troubled psyche manifest itself in his words? What is Marlow’s opinion of all this and how does it affect his own relationship to language? Does he see it as a cure for madness?
4. What is Marlow’s style of narration? Does the fact that he is telling the story compromise our belief in its validity? Is he a reliable narrator? What might be his goal in relating the story to his fellow passengers?

Linguistic expression – through either speech or text – represents one way out of madness, according to Marlow. On the flip side, those who do not express themselves well are condemned to remain stuck in the madness of the interior.

In Heart of Darkness, problems with linguistic expression – either orally or in writing – signals some fundamental lack of understanding in a character’s grasp of the situation.