Point of View in Conrad’s Almayer’s Folly: A Stylistic Perspective

The aim of this paper is to examine how point of view is signaled in Conrad’sAlmayer’s Folly and how it is used to exercise control over the attitudes we have ofcharacters and events in the story. Specifically, it aims to examine who sees and whospeaks in the story, whose views or ideas are being expressed as well as how characters andevents are represented. As regards the characters, the focus will be on the representationof the white European self vis-a-vis the native Other. In achieving this aim, the study willutilise Halliday’s transitivity system, Fowler’s point of view model and Said’s Orientalismor discourse of Othering. Findings reveal that the features which indicate or control pointof view include the system of deixis, vocabulary and transitivity structures, the use ofmodality as well as the various modes of speech and thought presentation. Almayer is themain focaliser in the text as the internal type of narration (narration within a character’sconsciousness) is mostly accorded to him. Prolonged intrusions into Almayer’s mentalfaculties allow the reader to empathise with his victimised and helpless state and to distance the readers from the natives who have been depicted externally (narration from outsidea character’s consciousness) in a most unsavoury manner. To some extent, an internalperspective is also accorded to the natives as it is through their perspectives that the whiteman’s duplicitous nature is revealed and the moral justifications for empire questioned.These are moments when Conrad registers his ambivalence towards the colonial projectand empire, however his attempts are not fully realised as he invariably gets pulled backinto the time-worn discourse of Othering in his representations of the Other.