Topic 8 - Discourse structure and point of view > Discourse structure of 1st and 3rd person novels > Task B

Discourse structure of 1st and 3rd person novels

Task B - The discourse architecture of 1st-person narration: Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness

Conrad's famous novella Heart of Darkness , begins with a 1st-person narration on the part of a sailor. This sailor tells us about his shipmate, Marlowe, who then tells a story to his shipmates (including the I-narrator) about a journey he made down the river Congo in Africa with a man called Kurtz . The reader effectively listens in on this tale. Throughout, every paragraph of Marlowe's narrative description begins with quotation marks, and the anonymous I-narrator also occasionally makes a comment to us about what Marlowe says, and 'frames' Marlowe's I-narration with some concluding commentary at the end of the novella, as well as at the beginning.

What is the story's discourse architecture and how would you expect it to affect our relations with the characters in the story as we read it? In producing your discourse structure diagram, imagine that Marlowe the character is being represented talking to Kurtz. Compare your findings with ours.

Our findings

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