Here we see ,Conrad, not only giving us a visually detailed and arresting picture but also showing his mastery in the dexterous use of 'im-signs' or image signs(term used by Pasolini)who believed that the linguistic and grammatical domain of the film-maker is constituted by images and that every image-sign was constituted of actions, dreams memories etc). Conrad in adherence to Pasolini's theory uses the im-signs for a dual purpose- for an objective as well as a subjective projection. In the image of the native woman the objectivity of the " striped and fringed cloth", of the " brass leggings" and the " brass wire gauntlets" is inseparably bound with the subjective point-of-view of " the seaman" Marlow who perceieves "something ominous and stately" in the " tragic and fierce aspect of wild sorrow"...
The subjective intervention ,infact, comes at a primary stage, insofar as the primary choice of possible images is quite necessarily subjective. This dual dance of objectivity and subjectivity of im-signs is translated linguistically and stylistically by Conrad in his handling of narrative. So Conrad makes use of the cinematic concept of "direct discourse"(Glossary -which as per Pier Pasolini corresponds to the subjective shot where the author puts himsef aside and allows his characters to speak for themselves) synonomous with a "subjective shot" as well as " free indirect disclosure", (where the author penetrates the very soul and psyche of the character) synonomous with objectivity. In the direct discourse, Conrad puts himself aside and allows his characters to speak. As Marlow speaks to us throughout the narrative of the 'Heart of Darkness': " Next day I left that station at last, with a caravan of sixty men for a two-hundred mile tramp...No use telling you much about that. Paths paths everywhere; a stamped in network of paths spreading over the empty land, through long grass, through burnt grass, through thickets, down and up chilly ravines, up and down stony hills ablaze with heat;...and nobody not a hut...On the fifteenth day, I came in sight of the big river again, and hobbled into the Central Station. It was on a backwater surrounded by scrub and forest, with a pretty border of smelly mud on one side and on three other sides enclosed by a crazy fence of rushes"...(p35 )*. So , here we see, Conrad ,the author effacing his subjectivity , his opinion about the plot and characters of the novel. The perspective throughout is that of Marlow 'the seaman' and not of Joseph Conrad, the author. However, the author alternates between the 'subjective' linguistic stylization and 'objective' stylization. In the 'objective' stylization, the author penetrates entirely into the spirit of his character, of whom he adopts not only the psychology but also the language. A characteristic of such a stylistic discourse is that the author cannot abstract from them a certain psychological consciousness of the milieu he is evoking: the social condition of the character determines his language. And so we have Marlow "the seaman", the "wanderer" using 'nautical' terms like "offing", "Bon Voyage"and the more technical " chain to be hauled in short" or " trip the anchor", so as to reproduce and relive the language of his social ethos.
Part of the Dream Weave Walk 1999-2010