Irvine Valley College

Online Creative Writing Workshop

Writing 10 - Introduction to Creative Writing

Spring 2012 - Ticket # 64580

Marjorie Coverley Luesebrink, Instructor

 

Week 3: 

Which Live In and Out of Time

Online Lecture for Week 3: 

In your outside reading for this week, you will see the way that Joseph Conrad structures the frame for Heart of Darkness.  As I said in my comments to you, this is one of the classic modern novels, not only because of the fascinating story but also because of the way that the narrative voice and the time frames are established.  Watch what happens:  first, there is a "real time" frame for the novel.  This "real time" frame is the "novelistic present."   The narrator, unnamed (but a persona for Conrad, presumably) is relating what happened one day while he was cruising on the Thames.  

The "Nellie," a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest. The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for us was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide. 

So, the narrator tells us, the boat is becalmed, and the inhabitants are going to wait for the tide to turn.  Aboard are the unnamed narrator, the Director, the Lawyer, the Accountant, and Marlow.  

[You might also want to note the way the scene is set - actually our lesson for next week.  Note the way that the gloom is described:  the telling details, "the sea and the sky were welded together without a joint" (reference to the industrial engine that drives colonialism); "was toying architecturally with the bones" (as with dominoes, conquest is a game of real bones, real death); "stricken to death by the touch of that gloom brooding over a crowd of men." (even the sun is damaged by the actions of rapacious men) - and so forth.]

Anyway, time.  At first they are going to play a game of dominoes, but then they just kind of sit around and watch the night descend.  While they are waiting, Marlow begins to speak.  The content of his speech will comprise the rest of the "real time" story - that is, the scope of the present-time narrative will begin on the boat, and it will end on the boat when the tide turns and they can proceed (maybe a matter of hours).  [You will note that, for this reason, most of the book is in quotes - that is, the unnamed narrator is quoting Marlow.]  At a couple of points in Marlow's story, the narrator (Marlow) breaks in to remind us we are still on the boat, still listening to Marlow on the Thames.  

Let us, for the purposes of identification, call this time on the Nellie the Real Time.  Every story has a Real Time - it may be explicit, as it is in Heart of Darkness, or it may be implicit as it is in Wordsworth's Intimations, which you will read in Week 6 (the lyric poetry voice is usually implicit - we know that the poet is, in effect, "singing" the lines, but we are not exactly sure where or when that is really taking place, just that it is the literary present).  When you go to write a story, or a poem, one of the most important things to figure out is the time structure.

Now, Marlow is going to "talk" for the entire novel - the entire present frame.  But he is going to tell a story of the past - a story that happened some ten years in the past.  And, the time frame for this story of the past - the tale of Marlow going up the Congo River to find Mr. Kurtz - can be named, as well.  I suggest we call it the Narrative TimeNarrative Time is comprised of any material which serves to tell of events in the past - whether a complete episode (like the Marlow-Kurtz adventure), or fragments of past history (the narrator tells events from childhood), or sections of plot-related information (as we often find in flashbacks).  In Heart of Darkness, the time frame of the Narrative Time begins when Marlow tells us about his childhood dream of going to sea and securing his job in Africa.  It ends when he relates the story of going to visit Kurtz's "intended."   

But there is another and equally important time frame being established here, as well.  It is central to all storytelling, but we often miss it if we are not looking!  Notice that when Marlow begins speaking, he says:

"And this also," said Marlow suddenly, "has been one of the dark places of the earth." 

Well, what can he mean?  The main story of Heart of Darkness is about "darkest" Africa.  But Marlow actually spends some key words at the beginning of his story linking the Belgian adventure in Africa to the Roman invasion of Britain.  Curious!  But central to the time framing.  What Conrad has done, here, is to say that, while the Marlow Narrative Time is around 1890, the significant or Mythic Time Frame is meant to encompass all the times of history that include the forcible colonization of subject peoples.  He has chosen the Roman invasion of Britain, aptly, since Caesar came ashore very close to where they are cruising.  But the Roman subjugation of Gaul represents, too, one of the first times in history when one imperial power set out to actually colonize, change, educate a whole tribe.  [Yes, we have Egypt and Persia and other conquering nations, but they mainly contented themselves with tribute and fortresses; the idea of civilizing and integrating a whole subject people is an innovative feature of Roman administration.]  So, the Mythic Time Frame of Heart of Darkness is much longer and more inclusive than either the Real Time or the Narrative Time.  And  it is the key to the larger truth of the story.  Marlow's tale is one of disillusion: questioning the values of civilization ("Exterminate all the brutes!"), resolving to only do the work at hand  ("smell dead hippo"), and eventually understanding of the fragility of morality ("the horror, the horror!").  But Conrad wants us to know that these discoveries do not have to be made on the Congo River, they are available when- and where-ever we have imperial greed in the guise of cultural improvement - America, India, Vietnam, China, you name it. 

(A note here:  what a joy to be writing this for this class - I can deal with some fairly complex ideas, knowing that you are all observant readers and familiar with the history and the geography of the world!)

I was surprised when I began to examine a wide sampling of writing and found that Mythic Time Frames were often operative.  Usually, the Mythic Time Frame is signaled by whatever refers to the earliest historical period.  In this way, the Mythic Time Frame can be representative of the "first cause."  

The Time Frame Structure of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, for example, is a wonder of tale-telling.  The "narrator" of Frankenstein is actually the ship captain who takes Dr. Frankenstein aboard in the Arctic.  Note the Real Time of the Captain's experience, the Narrative Time of Dr. F.'s story, the Mythic Time of mankind's struggle with the concept of creation, itself!  I don't know if any of you are familiar with J.M. Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians, but this is another wonder of time-frame construction!!}

If you look at a short story like Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" you will find that, out the window of the room where Emily keeps the dead body of her old suitor, we see the Civil War Graveyard.  Faulkner's Mythic Time frequently harks back to the American Civil War - which was (in his opinion) the start of all the woes of the South.  I'm thinking also of the explanation about the two houses in Wuthering Heights, where author Emily Bronte wants us to know about the disintegration of formerly noble households - yes?  The discontinuities of the class system in England surely are the cause of Catherine and Heathcliff's woes.  

Even when you don't see the time frames marked clearly, you can tease them out.  

Ah, this ran a little long - even so, seems very quick to cover this important idea.  Let's continue it in the discussions with questions and other suggestions --

M.

Return to Week 3.

 

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Marjorie Coverley Luesebrink, your Instructor, is a Professor of English in the School of Humanities and Languages

Irvine Valley College, Irvine, California