Dialogism in Heart of Darkness: The Voices Within

Abstract

Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is known for its narrative complexity; it is intentionally written to be confusing by the adoption of the non-linear narrative style, unfolding in a series of unrelated events. It achieves multiplicity of meaning by virtue of this complexity resulting from the seemingly single-voiced narrative. This reading strategy allows the reader to view the novel in a more comprehensive way, taking into consideration relationships that connect the speaker with the author, auditor, and reader. These agents interact in the narrative to create Bakhtinian dialogism, where meaning emerges from polyphony, the interplay of all vocal or non-vocal voices in the novel...