(Honors Seg 1, 06 MC] "One day he remarked, without lifting his head, 'In the interior you will no doubt meet Mr. Kurtz.' On my asking who Mr. Kurtz was, he said he was a first-class agent; and seeing my disappointment at this information, he added slowly, laying down his pen, 'He is a very remarkable person.' Further questions elicited from him that Mr. Kurtz was at present in charge of a trading post, a very important one, in the true ivory-country, at the very bottom of there. Sends in as much ivory as all the others put together...' He began to write again. The sick man was too ill to groan. The flies buzzed in a great peace." Identify and explain Joseph Conrad's formal or informal writing style in this passage from The Heart of Darkness, citing specific examples from the text.
Conrad uses informal language to represent the hierarchy between the narrator and the person issuing an order.
We can arrive at this answer because:
The narrator is a sailor and is taking orders from his superior, who claims that he will go on a mission to rescue a man named Mr. Kurtz.
The language between the man and the narrator is informal, as the narrator is a sailor and is at a lower level of hierarchy than the man who is issuing the orders.
For this reason, the language is informal, but it maintains a high level of respect between the two, due to the lack of intimacy and the work environment.
The use of informal language is intended to reinforce this hierarchy and show why the narrator obeys the orders he received.
You can learn more about informal and on-the-job communication at the following link:
