Abstract
What are we to make of Charles Marlow, Joseph Conrad’s alter ego, in Lord Jim, the
modernist novel published at the height of Britannia’s rule of the waves? In Heart of Darkness, Marlow is sensitive to the suffering of the colonised and deeply critical of the colonial project, but his narration of Lord Jim betrays casual privilege and enthusiastic complicity in imperial hegemony. I suggest that a more comprehensive understanding of Marlow’s attitude to colonialism can be achieved by reading Heart of Darkness in relation to its two most faithful adaptations, Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now and James Brabazon’s The Break Line.
modernist novel published at the height of Britannia’s rule of the waves? In Heart of Darkness, Marlow is sensitive to the suffering of the colonised and deeply critical of the colonial project, but his narration of Lord Jim betrays casual privilege and enthusiastic complicity in imperial hegemony. I suggest that a more comprehensive understanding of Marlow’s attitude to colonialism can be achieved by reading Heart of Darkness in relation to its two most faithful adaptations, Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now and James Brabazon’s The Break Line.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 13-22 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics |
| Volume | 43 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Publication status | Published - 20 Nov 2020 |