The method is unsound: the aesthetic dissonance of colonial justification in Kipling, Conrad, and Greene - authors Rudyard Kipling, Joseph Conrad and Graham Greene

Style, Fall, 1996 by James Scannell

Conrad conveys this perceived shortcoming of Kipling's collection almost from the start in Heart of Darkness, when Marlow's narrative is not met with a warm welcome. The narrator notes of Marlow's jarring first line, tossed into the silence - "'And this also . . . has been one of the dark places of the earth'" - "It was accepted in silence. No one took the trouble to grunt even," suggesting a company that acquiesces to the inevitable: hearing another of Marlow's yarns (Heart 5). Near the end of the first section, the reader again is reminded that Marlow may not have completely captivated his audience: "There was not a word from anybody. The others might have been asleep." While this description may betoken an awed silence or breathless interest, it may just as easily be a straightforward account of the truth: the others present are sleeping and therefore not listening. The reader can be sure only that the narrator is listening to Marlow's tale, and he is interested in Marlow's discourse on the informing idea only because it matches his own sense of Empire as well as his own tendency to see the world in terms of the Spirit moving in the real; two beliefs upon which he expounds in the prologue. As it is with Kipling, however, Conrad's story of pragmatic idealism may not be an engaging one. Marlow chooses initially to tell the story of Moriarty and Churton, without regard for the interests of his listeners who might be more engaged by the likes of Strickland or Mrs. Hauksbee. The moral value of Kipling's project aside, Conrad's point here is that the fiction fails aesthetically, and this failure leads Conrad to question the very nature of Kipling's justification. The aesthetic dissonance of Kipling's collection triggers its ethical dissonance.

In the second section of Heart of Darkness, Conrad makes it clear that the impression made by such stories of the ideal informing practice is strongly at odds with the set of values those stories are intended to convey. Kipling never makes it possible for his readers to experience his own high regard for those who make ideas the basis of their practice. We share Kipling's regard for an ideal-informed practice only as an idea extracted from the text, not one experienced firsthand inside Kipling's narratives. Twice in the second section of Heart of Darkness, the listeners are again brought into the frame of the narrative, and in both instances their responses provide an occasion for Marlow to break the flow of the narrative for a more direct idea-driven form of address:

"The inner truth is hidden - luckily, luckily. But I felt it all the same; I felt often its mysterious stillness watching me at my monkey tricks, just as it watches you fellows performing on your respective tight-ropes for - what is it? half a crown a tumble"

"Try to be civil, Marlow," growled a voice, and I knew there was at least one listener awake besides myself.

"I beg your pardon. I forgot the heartache which makes up the rest of the price. And indeed what does the price matter, if the trick be well done? You do your tricks very well." (Heart 34-35)