Don't You Hate Titles That Have Nothing To Do With The Content?

Quick summary of Ian Watt's "Impressionism and Symbolism in Heart of Darkness."

Watt spends almost no time discussing his thesis/title; he also fails to answer the questions and propositions he introduces. He spends most of the article talking about other people and other stories which will not help you understand impressionism or symbolism in Heart of Darkness; so I am going to sum up the sparse details that pertain to these ideas here.

Marlow has a very special kind of story telling invoking two distinctive qualities, roughly categorized as symbolist and impressionist.

Impressionism

Mist or haze is a good example of impressionism.

Conrad was called an "impressionistic realist" long before impressionism was widely discussed.

Conrad was known to speak against specifically being an impressionist despite now being categorized as one.

Heart of Darkness essentially impressionist in one "special and yet general way," it accepts and asserts the enigmatic nature of individual understanding. Marlow explores how ones own knowledge of another can change the way he sees the world as a whole mysteriously.

In narration, Conrad captures how humans perceive something immediately but then takes time to figure out what it means. Watts calls this delayed decoding and believes it assists the impressionist nature of Heart of Darkness.


Symbolism

Fundamental intellectual mode of symbolism is religion and imagination.

Conrad, though writing about his disconnect with the French Symbolist he also exposed major commonality in between his and their basic attitudes. They can be split into two major categories: ontological (relating to the essence and nature of being) and expressive (vision beyond the work's overt statements).

Conrad asserted that he wrote straight from the heart in an attempt to give a true impression. He wanted to "connect the small world of a ship with the larger world carrying perplexities, affections, rebellions." (360 cited from David R. Smith)

"Conrad is in general accord with the symbolist ontology; as regards to expressive technique the parallels are somewhat closer." 361

"If Conrad belongs to the symbolist tradition, it is only in a limited, eclectic and highly idiosyncratic way." 363

Heart of Darkness however typifies in many respects French Symbolist tendencies. Its plot represents a symbolic quest towards darkness in many different ways. Wants to represent "the infinite in the finite"

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