A Psychological Connection

As of recently, I've been delving into the world that is Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. In my last post, which you can view here, I discussed the way that a double narrative and shift in time affects the way that the reader takes in the novel.
This time, however, I'm going to be getting a bit more into the psychological aspect of the novel, and the way that it affects the way the reader actually connects with this particular work. Because of this, this post is also going to be a much more personal analysis.

Jacques Lacan.
Just look at that head of hair. 

To do so I first need to explain a theory about a dead French dude named Jacques Lacan who created this thing called the Lacanian Theory. (How would it be to become famous enough that you get a theory named after you?) To sum his theory up, he believes that the moment you begin to recognize yourself in the mirror is the moment you go in search of what your identity actually is. And so when you're reading a book,  you automatically seek out different parts of that book that can apply to what your life is as a whole. Follow me there? So basically when you find all this hidden symbolism in the book that you think was obviously written just for you (when it really wasn't) you're supporting Lacan's theory.

Now onto Heart of Darkness!

One of the most common ways to work through this novel is by looking between the symbolism and the characters throughout. For the sake of length, I'm just going to discuss the narrators and the thought itself of the darkness.

We obviously have our main character/ narrator Marlow, who goes on his dark journey through the Congo in search of an Ivory trader. Strangely enough, as I was reading the novel I actually didn't connect all that much with Marlow. He wasn't much to me, he simply was. The character in this novel that I mirrored the most actually turned out to be the unknown narrator that would just occasionally throw something out there explaining the way that he was hearing and seeing the tale from Marlow. In my own life, I can be a very quiet listener. I don't often jump into conversations, and if someone else is telling a story, often the only time I'll speak up is when necessary. Because of this, this unknown narrator became part of my identity as I took in the book.

Me, pondering the existence
 of a book inside of me.

Then there's the symbolism of the darkness. What does it mean? What did Conrad intend it to mean? Is it a physical darkness? Mental? When looking at the symbolism of this and how I took it into my own life, I was also reminded of the reader response theory. This states that the reader basically becomes the author of the work in a different way. So although the darkness came to mean the darkness of the heart to me, perhaps Conrad meant it in a totally different way, and perhaps someone else who has read this novel painted the darkness in their mind in a completely different way. But because of my reader response to the darkness, I absorbed this symbolism into the person that I am, and the way that the book will impact me is strongly based upon this.

When talking about the psychology of Heart of Darkness, it can be difficult because it becomes a very subjective subject. My responses vastly alter the way that the book is mirrored in my life, in the same way it would be vastly different from the way the book would be mirrored in another person's life. There are so many different ways to view Conrad's work, but if you take the time to dive into it, you're likely to find parts that contribute to you as a person.

So tell me, what part of you is mirrored back when reading Heart of Darkness?