The Named and the Nameless In Joseph Conrad’s novel The Heart of Darkness Marlow, a new explorer for The Company, finds himself traveling into the heart of Africa and the darkness within it. During his journey he encounters many different people, but only he and the mysterious Mr Krutz, the manger of the central station in the heart of it all, are ever named. Every other character is named based on their title or who they appear to be. Overall in The Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad defines his characters and their importance through the use of stereotypes, dehumanization of their identities, and specifying only certain characters’ names. Throughout the novel Conrad names his characters based on their appearances or their intended roles.
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By having titles rather than names, the characters become detached from their basic human characteristics. They become more like materialistic objects, than the men they are. This can be seen in many of Marlow’s encounters with Company workers. When first encountering the Chief Accountant from the Outer Station he says his,“appearance was certainly that of a hairdresser 's dummy”( Conrad 84) and then compares the Brickmakers, who works at the Central Station, to a papier-mache figure he feels he could poke holes through. By making these comparisons Conrad make the characters less human and shows what unhuman like traits they harbor and the darkness everyone has inside them. Debra Baldwin writes that Conrad approaches “the human by inverting it, by looking at the dehumanized and the inhuman. And both do so using a strikingly similar image: hollowness”(qtd. In The Horror and the Human). As stated this “hollowness” is an important reason Conrad does not name his characters, but allows the inhumaneness consume the character showing their true intentions and inherent …show more content…
From the start the reader knows Marlow is different, “he did not represent his class. He was a seaman, but was a wanderer, too”(Conrad 67). Unlike most of the Company workers introduced in the novel, Marlow actually travels through Africa into the darkness and comes in contact with it. Marlow is immersed in the darkness, but feels he can step away just in time to save himself from it. He never truly escapes the darkness he encounters and is left trying to reconcile the wrongs he saw in Africa. He attempts to right these wrongs by warning others of the misfortunes of Africa. “How could you-- with solid pavement under your feet...how can you imagine what particular region of the first ages of man’s untrammeled feet may take him into by the way of solitude-- utter solitude without a policeman”(Conrad 126). He warns them of the horror of Africa to attempt to free himself from the bonds of darkness. In “Mythos, Ethos, and The Heart of Conrad’s Darkness” Graham Bradshaw writes how Marlow is changed due to the darkness because he has lost hope in the truth and how his madness was driven home by the lie he told to Kurtz 's intended. Due to this lie he will never truly be able to detach himself from the events of the Congo. Conrad give this Buddha like wander a name to show his constant and eternal attachment to the heart of darkness, not only in Africa but in
By having titles rather than names, the characters become detached from their basic human characteristics. They become more like materialistic objects, than the men they are. This can be seen in many of Marlow’s encounters with Company workers. When first encountering the Chief Accountant from the Outer Station he says his,“appearance was certainly that of a hairdresser 's dummy”( Conrad 84) and then compares the Brickmakers, who works at the Central Station, to a papier-mache figure he feels he could poke holes through. By making these comparisons Conrad make the characters less human and shows what unhuman like traits they harbor and the darkness everyone has inside them. Debra Baldwin writes that Conrad approaches “the human by inverting it, by looking at the dehumanized and the inhuman. And both do so using a strikingly similar image: hollowness”(qtd. In The Horror and the Human). As stated this “hollowness” is an important reason Conrad does not name his characters, but allows the inhumaneness consume the character showing their true intentions and inherent …show more content…
From the start the reader knows Marlow is different, “he did not represent his class. He was a seaman, but was a wanderer, too”(Conrad 67). Unlike most of the Company workers introduced in the novel, Marlow actually travels through Africa into the darkness and comes in contact with it. Marlow is immersed in the darkness, but feels he can step away just in time to save himself from it. He never truly escapes the darkness he encounters and is left trying to reconcile the wrongs he saw in Africa. He attempts to right these wrongs by warning others of the misfortunes of Africa. “How could you-- with solid pavement under your feet...how can you imagine what particular region of the first ages of man’s untrammeled feet may take him into by the way of solitude-- utter solitude without a policeman”(Conrad 126). He warns them of the horror of Africa to attempt to free himself from the bonds of darkness. In “Mythos, Ethos, and The Heart of Conrad’s Darkness” Graham Bradshaw writes how Marlow is changed due to the darkness because he has lost hope in the truth and how his madness was driven home by the lie he told to Kurtz 's intended. Due to this lie he will never truly be able to detach himself from the events of the Congo. Conrad give this Buddha like wander a name to show his constant and eternal attachment to the heart of darkness, not only in Africa but in