96
PARTISAN REVIEW
his fiction works to dissolve the dangerous habit of dualistic (i.e.,
oppositional) thinking. So one effect of
Heart of Darkness
is not to
endorse either the West or the jungle but to erode some of the
unexamined assumptions which make such either/ or thinking possi–
ble. I am not suggesting that comparable ironic energy is at work in his
preface to his wife's cookbook-presumably he intended that it should
sell rather than that readers should start to question the prevailing
vocabulary of the Western kitchen. His wigwam full of groaning
dyspeptic Indians is, of course, a joke-arguably in dubious tastc–
intended to amuse rather than disturb. But in relating cooking to the
whole matter of how we live, Conrad indicates his awareness that what
we eat is intimately connected to what we are,
10
a more than
alimentary way.
Falk
is the one piece of fiction by Conrad in which literal
cannibalism is the act at the center of the action (although rather than
summarize the plot of this novella I will assume some knowledge of its
general outline which will, in any case, become clear as this discussion
proceeds). Falk is one of the most arresting figures in Conrad, to be
compared and contrasted with Kurtz and Axel Heyst. Unlike most of
Conrad's social outcasts and pariahs, Falk was not guilty of a mo–
ment 's weakness, a sudden collapse of some inner discipline, a fall
from the ranks.
It
was precisely his strength that took him into
isolation.
It
is important that on the voyage which ended in cannibal–
ism he was the man who to the last attempted to maintain order and
morale, to give the flagging Captain energy and maintain some
organization and integration on the ship. He was a supreme
main–
tainer
of the ranks, as long as there were ranks to maintain. His
moment of decision came after the other good man on the ship-the
carpenter, note-attempted to kill him with a crowbar. That is to say,
the builder or mender and upholder of structures had turned into the
murderer, and tools became weapons. This is symptomatic of the total
collapse and disintegration of normal patterns which I will mention
later.
After that, self-survival became the only meaningful concern for
Falk. The point is that Falk was "unfortunate" (his word) enough to
have to eat human flesh. He feels no guilt about it, yet he feels unclean.
He wishes to rejoin human society but not at the cost of deceit. That is
why he insists on telling his story to the girl. Hermann, who is so
shocked, seems to be the opposite type
to
Falk-the man who clings to
the shore, whose life is public and orthodox and unhaunted, who stays
within the prescribed tastes of the community. Yet in a way he is the
