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Descriptive summary - what Marlow learns in Africa

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Descriptive summary - what Marlow learns in Africa
Paulina Nawrot Gr. 1

Descriptive Summary

'What does Marlow learn in Africa?'

Charles Marlow is the character from Joseph Conrad's book called 'Heart of Darkness' who went for a journey to Africa to discover what does the life look like there. During his journey the character changes and discovers many things which he has not seen before. During his spent in Africa Marlow behaves as the observer and estimates everybody's behaviour but all of that he discovers he keeps in himself, does not judge anybody at the first sight. Africa taught him how to have a way with people. He learned that it is important to treat working people as the most important, irrespective of their skins' colours or they origin. He was also tolerant to the people around him. He learned that some people,as director or agent who he met, might puts us off but it is inappopriate to show our strong emotions to persons like they. Despite the fact that he saw himself as distinguished person who can lead the ship capably he also was critical about himself and tried to evaluate his own demanour what improved during his journey. Africa was a misterious place for him. He was afraid of all this big trees around him, he could not find himself there. But after this long time he learnt how to deal with this fear and became a confident person. His stay there changed his state of mine of colonisation. He discovered that it was really cruel in case of this people and people should not do that against each other. Colonisation is for him the way of exploitation, looting of natives. The climax of Marlow's change is the moment when he met Kurtz, the person who was always in his mind and was the main destination of his journey to Africa. He then discovered that every person in the world have his other, darker side and may be really cruel. He now knows that every person, even if it is European might be a wild person who only thinks about material benefits, not about the other people's feelings.The way how he had seen people changed, from good people to this cruel one, who are selfish and terrible to each other. Despite that Kurtz is not as good as he thought at the beginning he admired him and until Marlow dies, he defends Kurtz as far as he can. As we can see, during his journey to Africa Marlow discovers that every person deserves to be treated as the others are. What's more, his state of mind changes when he meets Kurtz, who shows him how the real life looks like, that people are cruel and do not care about the others.

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