Heart? of Darkness? Reading in the Dark with J. Hillis Miller and Joseph Conrad

Abstract

Heart? of Darkness? We might think that we know how to read this title, although after Derrida’s unpacking of the function of the title, we can no longer be so sure. We might believe that we understand what the terms of the title of Joseph Conrad’s novel mean. We assume for example that we know what a heart is, whether we choose to consider the term literally or metaphorically. We also assume we know the meaning of ‘darkness’. No doubt, in unfolding the meanings of these two words, we will inevitably work towards definition, defining them by reference to that which they are not, that from which they differ, and that the meaning or value of which is deferred in seeking to assign value to the terms ‘Heart’ and ‘Darkness’. But none of this can adequately answer the question I seem to hear being asked — it’s another of those ‘improper’ questions of which I spoke in the first chapter — which is: what is a ‘heart of darkness’? Such a question inevitably causes other equally difficult questions to proliferate. For example: how do we locate a ‘heart of darkness’, if indeed what seems to be required is some navigation aid, a compass perhaps or a map (how do you map the unmappable?)? Where, in the dark, can you hope to find a heart, or even the heart of the darkness itself? Can/does darkness, whether literal or metaphorical, have a heart?