Charles Marlow: Narration in Translation

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine selected issues concerning the differences in the reception of specific narratorial features as regards the original literary text and its translation. The analysis focuses on a unique narrator created by Joseph Conrad – a story teller and yarn spinner Charles Marlow. Marlow as a first-person narrator, who recounts his experiences to his intradiegetic addressees, employs characteristic techniques to communicate with his listeners, to make them involved in his stories, and to re-live his experiences. If ignored or overlooked by a translator, narrative techniques and linguistic features typical of him disappear, thus changing the reception of him as a narrator. This shift in reception and the very image of Marlow is exemplified by ignoring such features as Marlow’s phatic communication with his intradiegetic addressees (the use of such expressions as “you see”, “you understand”), interpretive markers that indicate Marlow’s imperfect knowledge or hesitation (expressions such as “I think”, “I believe”), linguistic patterning (repetitions) and cases of delayed decoding.