“When you have to
attend to things of that sort, to the mere incidents of the surface, the
reality – the reality, I tell you – fades. The inner truth is hidden…But I felt
it all the same” (103).
At
the very rudimentary understanding of this passage, Marlow is steering a boat
through relatively uncharted waters. He is the eyes and ears of the boat, in
charge of making sure they reach their destination. In the broader scope of
things, this can be looked at as one big metaphor. Marlow is so focused on the
task of steering alone that he is not taking in the area they are passing as a
whole. He is not appreciating the big picture. Rather, he is acutely tuned into
his job alone. This is comparable to his thoughts he expressed earlier on
imperialism. When it came to the treatment of these African people, Marlow
feels badly about his actions towards the people only in retrospect, only as
current day Marlow. Past Marlow describes their violence towards the native
people as “very proper for those who tackle a darkness” (69). As he states here, when one is in the midst of
acting, the repercussions can often be left unconsidered. When he looks back on
this rabid pillaging that occurred, he realizes the errors in his ways to an
extent of course, but in the moment he was unable to discern right from wrong.
He was simply following the formula, doing what he thought was supposed to be
done. In this passage it is the same idea. The reality of the situation he is
in is lost; he is only aware of the boat and getting the boat through the
obstructions. He could not be bothered with what these obstructions actually
are, what this foreign place he is in is showing him. It is practically intentional
ignorance with Marlow not wanting to have to consider the bounds of the unknown
world.
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