"Over the Edge" : liminal aspects of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

Abstract

Heart of Darkness is often seen as a parable on the subject of human nature or as a critique of modern Western civilization and its colonial crimes. The novella was obviously planned not as a story ‘about’ Africa, but above all as a story that makes the reader – like Marlow – confront the experience of an unknown cultural context. As such, it is an exemplary tale about the meeting of cultures and the experience of cultural otherness, which cannot be reduced to a mere epistemological pattern. This article is an attempt to apply the concept of the ritual of passing and Victor Turner’s theory of liminality to a reading of Conrad’s novella.