Lurking Darkness: Darkness as an Entity Full of Meanings

This article is cultural history-based and uses 19th century travel narratives as source material. The article draws from phenomenological and ontological perspectives, and its focus is on nocturnal darkness, its experience and description when travelling in a foreign place. For this research, I have familiarized myself with the travel descriptions of my research subjects by searching for mentions of darkness in them. By focusing on these different situations describing darkness, I have reached the meanings given to darkness. In each description of darkness that I have found, I have searched for the possible agency given to darkness. The darkness overall and the nocturnal darkness has changed the experience of the environment, and the meanings given to it in different situations have varied. Darkness has also made things happen; it has an effect, which emphasizes its agency. However, this article points out that the agency of darkness cannot be examined only in itself, there is an interaction between darkness and the experiencer of darkness, as well as with other entities.