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FROMNARRATORTONARRATEEANDFROMAUTHOR
TOREADER:CONRADANDHISAUDIENCE
JakobLothe
OsloUniversity
Conradwasacutelyawareofhisaudience.Heknewthatasreadersweoftenmis-
readandmisunderstand;hewasalsopossessedoftheknowledgethat,seenfromhis
perspectiveasawriter,thenarrativecommunicationbetweenauthorandreaderis
unstableandfragile.Moreover,Conradofcoursealsoknew,andaccepted,thatread-
ersreaddifferently,andthatthereisnosuchthingasa“masterreading.”
InthisessayIwanttoarguethat,partlybecauseofhisrecognitionofthedifficul-
tiesandchallengespertainingtowrittenandoralcommunication,partlybecauseof
theintrinsiccomplexityofwhatthewantedtosay,Conradsoughttodevelopnarra-
tivestrategiesinwayswhichcouldenhancethepossibilityofmeaningfulcommuni-
cativecontact.By“meaningful”Imeanaformofreadingthatresponds,however
imperfectlyandincompletely,tothefictionalwork’s“textualintention”(Chatman
1990,104;cf.Lothe2000,19),thatistheintentionwhichthereadercanextrapolate
fromtheverbaldiscourse(thestoryastheauthorpresentsit).Seenthus,textualinten-
tionapproachestheintentionoftheimpliedauthor–theimageoftheauthorinthe
text.Eventhoughwecannotascertainthetextualintentionof,say,HeartofDarkness,
wecanarguablyidentifyanddiscussseveralofitsconstituentelements–notleast
thoseengenderedandformedbythetext’snarrativedevicesandstructuralcharacter-
istics.
Onepremiseformyargument,then,isthatalthoughwereaddifferently,thereare
waysinwhichnarrative,andcertainlyConradiannarrative,manipulatesourreading
andunderstandingoftheverbaldiscourse.Atthesametime,Conradiannarrative
includesinterestingexamplesoffictionaltexts,orpassagesoftexts,whichareunder-
stoodverydifferentlybydifferentreaders.InthisessayIwant,first,toconsiderhow
Conradusesnarrativetoshapeourreadingofthreeofhismostimportantfictional
texts.Second,Iwillcommentonthewaysinwhich,inthecaseofHeartofDarkness
inparticular,elementsofnarrativeseemtodistortorcomplicatetextualintention–or
perhapsrathermakereadersdisagreeaboutthework’stextualintention.Mycritical
