FROM NARRATOR TO NARRATEE AND FROM AUTHOR TO READER: CONRAD AND HIS AUDIENCE

Abstract

Conrad was acutely aware of his audience. He knew that as readers we often misread and misunderstand; he was also possessed of the knowledge that, seen from his perspective as a writer, the narrative communication between author and reader is unstable and fragile. Moreover, Conrad of course also knew, and accepted, that readers read differently, and that there is no such thing as a “master reading.” In this essay I want to argue that, partly because of his recognition of the diffi culties and challenges pertaining to written and oral communication, partly because of the intrinsic complexity of what the wanted to say, Conrad sought to develop narrative strategies in ways which could enhance the possibility of meaningful communicative contact. By “meaningful” I mean a form of reading that responds, however imperfectly and incompletely, to the fi ctional work’s “textual intention” (Chatman 1990, 104; cf. Lothe 2000, 19), that is the intention which the reader can extrapolate from the verbal discourse (the story as the author presents it). Seen thus, textual intention approaches the intention of the implied author – the image of the author in the text. Even though we cannot ascertain the textual intention of, say, Heart of Darkness, we can arguably identify and discuss several of its constituent elements – not least those engendered and formed by the text’s narrative devices and structural characteristics. One premise for my argument, then, is that although we read differently, there are ways in which narrative, and certainly Conradian narrative, manipulates our reading and understanding of the verbal discourse. At the same time, Conradian narrative includes interesting examples of fi ctional texts, or passages of texts, which are understood very differently by different readers. In this essay I want, fi rst, to consider how Conrad uses narrative to shape our reading of three of his most important fi ctional texts. Second, I will comment on the ways in which, in the case of Heart of Darkness in particular, elements of narrative seem to distort or complicate textual intention – or perhaps rather make readers disagree about the work’s textual intention. My critical