una tesina di M. Bortolotti

Introduzione 

La Maschera nella prima filologia nietzscheana

In Pirandello

La Maschera tra bene e male.

Commentary

The main story of Heart of Darkness is encompassed in a framing story told by an unnamed narrator about how Marlow told his story to a group of men on a boat on the Thames estuary. Thus, Heart of Darkness is on one level the story of the telling of a story. And here begins Conrad's game of puzzling with memories and fantasy.

The theme of communication and speech is an important one to Heart of Darkness, making the framing story an important aspect of the novel. The question of the reliability of sources comes up again and again in the book, and Marlow is isn't exempt from suspicion. 

No one except Marlow is named in the framing story; like many other characters in the book, they are identified only by their jobs (accountant, lawyer, etc.) In the framing story, this gives them an aura of being somehow symbolic, as their identity comes from their position in society. 

The theme of civilization versus savagery is central to Heart of Darkness, and begins developing almost immediately. Marlow's assertion that England was once one of the dark places of the earth introduces this explicitly, although the narrator touches on it earlier with his discussion of the Thames as a gateway of explorers and ambassadors of civilization. 

It also introduces the closely related theme of light versus dark, and white versus black. Light and dark have traditionally represented good and evil respectively, and civilization has generally been viewed as good while savagery has normally been seen as evil (with extremely notable exceptions, of course). So the city, the symbol of civilization, always forms a contrast with its surroundings, instead of as some great symbol of light and culture.

Marlow's tale has no clear meaning, even to him, and he struggles throughout to decipher some meaning in his experiences. This influences his method of discourse, which is sometimes disjointed and tangential, as one thought leads to another without strict regard to chronology. 

Marlow describes his journey on several occasions as one of self-discovery. His narrative has a certain dreamlike quality about it, and his story and its individual components possess an importance that lies hidden beneath the surface.
It seems to carry some meaning for him to interpret. 

Marlow hesitates before embarking on his journey and has the strange feeling that he's going at the center of a continent, but at the center of the earth. In the end, it becomes apparent that his real journey has been to the center of the human spirit.