Mythic and psychoanalytic criticism

Abstract

Marlow’s quest has been predominantly subject to mythic and psychoanalytic readings. Space constrains us to be brief; so we have been especially selective in this section. Thale [1955, in Dean] interprets the story as a Grail Quest where Marlow’s journey, like that of the Knight Errant, follows the pattern of the archetype with its conventional obstacles and tests, which get more difficult as he nears his Grail. Conrad’s self-conscious narrator points the way to such a reading as he searches for the ‘enchanted princess’ in a ‘fabulous castle’ [HD, p. 61]. The traditional illumination at the end of the quest is reversed, and darkness becomes visible. For Marlow, ‘a kind of light’ is thrown on everything about him. The modern Quest is ‘a journey into the depths of the self’ [Thale, in Dean, p. 162]. It is a discovery of the darkness, the hollowness beneath the thin protective surface of society.

No light, but rather darkness visible

Served only to discover sights of woe

[Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 1, 63–4]