Translating the other: Marlow’S Discourse between Imperial Rhetoric and Primary Orality

Abstract

The present paper attempts to see what determines Marlow’s difficulty to turn his Congolese experience into language. Therefore, I argue that Marlow’s storytelling collapses because at the core of his discourse there is the unknown semantic universe of the other. In the “heart of darkness”, on the banks of the Congo River, there stands an unknown language, the language of the natives which is known only by Kurtz. Thus it becomes impossible for Marlow to translate it and incorporate it in his story.