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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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