Framed narrative

I found the framed narrative in Lord Jim most interesting – like Heart of Darkness, we have a shadowy third person narrator setting up the story – and for the rest of the parts, it is the voice of Marlow speaking (as though speaking directly to the reader), and within Marlow’s story, is Jim’s side of the story. I was wondering if we can draw parallels between this narrative structure which seems to be embedded and coded on several levels, with the idea of penetrating into the “heart of darkness”, of entering deep within the conscious self. And within the self, there is a repeated sense of entrapment. For example, Marlow comments on how Jim “was imprisoned within the very freedom of his power”. Also the land, “dark green foliage of bushes and creepers”, surrounds and encloses the space they are in, and could also symbolically, stand for an imprisonment of the mind. The framed narrative, not only implicates readers into the consciousness of Marlow and Jim, but also engulfs us, forces us to look inward...within the deep recesses of our own minds.