Conrad's use of two narrators in Heart of
Darknessreinforces several of the novella's themes. The bulk of the narrative
is told by Charlie Marlow about his experiences in traveling up the Congo River in
search of Kurtz. Marlow retells his adventure while aboard a ship, the
Nellie, in the mouth of the Thames River waiting for the tide to
carry them out to sea. The Nellie and Marlow are introduced to the
reader at the very beginning of the novella by an unnamed narrator. Both Marlow and this
unnamed narrator are not entirely reliable in their accounts of events, both leave out
considerable details which beg the reader to become more involved in constructing the
meaning of both narratives. Even the interpretations of events of each of these
narrators is somewhat suspect--very little can be taken as
fact.
All of this supports one of the central themes of the
novella: the ambiguous nature of truth, evil, and morality. By using two narrators, we
are exposed to differing perspectives on the same basic concept--the journey into a
"heart of darkness" within the human soul--and are left to come to our own conclusions
about its meaning and significance.
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