Jennifer Formichelli wrote:
>
>
>
> Second, Carol:
> "Kurtz is
> dead (in Marlow's narrative)". Kurtz is dead by the time Marlow relates the
> story. In his narrative, however, Kurtz is alive almost until the end.

Clumsy use of the genitive by me. I didn't mean in the story Marlow
narrated. I mean the frame story, the story about Marlow's telling of
the story. Kurtz is dead before Marlow tells the story -- and the story
of Marlow includes his (Marlow's) visit to K's beloved to tell her of
K's death. Any time you have a framed story, all the events of the story
are finished before the narrator begins it, and the narrator's knowledge
of the end enters into our way of seeing the details of the story as
he(she) tells it. First person narratives offer a similar puzzle:
Consider _Huck Finn_ and _Mysterious Stranger_ in this light. The Marlow
who tells us of the shelling early in the story is a Marlow who
remembers bringing news of K's death to his beloved, not the Marlow (in
M's story of Kurtz) who hasn't met K yet.

Carrol