Even though The Heart Of Darkness has two different views about the fate of imperialism the pessimistic view and the optimistic view, both views closely relate to the views depicted in Apocalypse Now Redux. “But at first glance you could see there a singleness of intention, an honest concern for the right way of doing work which made these humble pages thought out so many years ago luminous with another than a professional light.” All throughout the book and the movie the depiction of Kurtz is realized to be frightening…
The climactic rise and fall of Kurtz and Nathan Price typifies the destructive, insidious force of society’s truth upon the human soul. Signs of Kurtz’ troubled state litter Marlow’s initial days at the Central Station. While admiring an agent’s artifact collection, Marlow stumbles upon a small sketch “representing a woman, draped and blind-folded, carrying a lighted torch” (Conrad 122). Kurtz’ revelatory painting of the “sinister” looking woman engulfed in darkness clearly reflects his struggle with forging ahead on the continuum of truth (Conrad 122). Unfortunately, the constant praise of his peers, who regarded Kurtz as a “remarkable person” (Conrad 115), “exceptional man,” (Conrad 119), “a prodigy” (Conrad 122), coupled with the unbounded freedom of the Congo, creates a severe superiority complex within him, grinding his continuum to a halt. Once on his knees, the European imperialist mentality effectively crushes Kurtz’ inner principles: “it had taken him, loved him, embraced him, got into his veins, consumed his flesh, and sealed his soul to its own” (Conrad 147). In Poisonwood Bible, Nathan Price also falls…
In the beginning Marlow is remembering what it may have been like to be a young Roman conqueror exploring through the jungle. He would have had to deal with “…cold, fog, tempests, disease, exile, and death...” Marlow mentions how the soldier would have had a “fascination of the abomination” . Later in the book this same fascination overcame Kurtz after his long time in the Congo, “he hates sometimes the idea of being taken away” . Even when Marlow finds Kurtz, he can’t “break the spell – the heavy mute spell of the wilderness – that seemed to draw him to its pitiless breast by the awakening of forgotten and brutal instincts”…
Was it Kurtz who did the killing/slaughtering? Or was it actually the men who sent him out there with no direct contact to make sure he was doing what they wanted him to do? In a sense the book asks who actually stripped Kurtz of his humanity. Was it the men who sent him out to conquer the people or was it himself for doing what he thought was right? The film decidedly points to Kurtz being his own demise, but still lightly questions the men at home making the…
Even though Marlow’s unrealistic depiction of Kurtz has been shattered by Kurtz’s cruelty, he believes that Kurtz achieved a “moral victory” in the battle with death. In a contest “without clamour, without glory, without the great desire, without the great fear of desire,” Kurtz achieved what Marlow fears he may not be able to do: “He had something to say. He said it.” In his final moments, Kurtz realized the cruelty of his own actions and, in this realization, weakly speaks the words “The horror!” When Marlow came within “ a hair’s breath” of death, he faced the humiliation that he might have nothing to say; therefore, Kurtz’s final “pronouncement” is of so much value to Marlow that it keeps him “loyal to Kurtz to the last.” Marlow believes that life is a riddle which baffles all men and that death is an adversary that every men must wrestle with. Conrad’s use of metaphor to depict Kurtz’s final struggle with life highlights the importance of Kurtz’s “moral victory” to Marlow. The notion of defeat or victory in the “unexciting contest” of life emphasizes that Marlow admires the strength Kurtz shows in his final…
The iniquity of the hearts of men precipitates the moral and social depravity of the entire population. In Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, Marlow finds that barbarism and savagery are universal among nations, and that the common man is able to be influenced by the slightest of impulses. The distinctive evil that roams Europe soon pervades newly discovered Africa and allows the darkness to fill the land. The European colonizers brought not only civilization and enlightenment to the land of the Congo, but also savagery and utter corruption. Throughout his journey, Marlow learns of the darkness of human kind, their hearts, and their minds through…
Likewise Kurtz was an emissary of western culture. And he has the notion that Europe can help to civilize the Congo. In his early life he was a man of sound views and an enlightened outlook upon life. As Jack in Lord of the Flies says we are English and we have to do the right things, Kurtz also in his report to International Society for Suppression of Savage Customs had wrote “We whites, from the point of development we had arrived at ‘must necessarily appear to them [savages] in the nature of supernatural beings. We approach them with the mighty as of a deity’. By the simple exercise of our will we can exert a power for good practically unbounded” (shamsher gondal, et al). The whites along with Kurtz were hypocrites, and…
Darkness, in Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, functions as a dynamic extension of Marlow’s altering values. Prevailing at its attempts in conveying the various phases of Marlow’s changing mindset, darkness provides a breeding ground for contention—mainly, the questioning of its inherent meaning as the plot and text unfold to form a myriad of clashing ideologies. Despite what many consider to represent solely the depths of human indecency, darkness pushes the bounds of that conclusion and takes on the many forms of greed, despondency, primitivism, and eternal damnation as Marlow’s feelings begin to conflict with standard European ideology. Marlow, perhaps the most complex character, finds himself in the middle of this debate with the eventual…
Conflict is used throughout the novel as a way of developing the savagery vs order theme. At the start of the novel the boys have a conch that serves as a sort of constitution to the group. One of the boys Jack Merridew starts off about what the group should do, “We'll…
The id is categorized on pleasure; the part of our psyche which corresponds with our instincts, the ego is based on one’s conscience and is responsible for carrying out the absurd demands in a realistic fashion, while the super-ego is based on one’s conscience in a society and is accountable for comprehending the brain’s values/morals. Kurtz is the paramount character in Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”. Working in the country of Africa in representation of one of the biggest Belgian trading companies, he is presented as a man with a great deal of talents. "The original Kurtz had been educated partly in England, and - as he was good enough to say himself — his sympathies were in the right place. His mother was half-English, his father was half-French. All Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz […]." (2.29) Throughout the beginning of the novel, Kurtz represents Europe’s way of life and seems to represent it well. In Europe, all he is exposed to is a civilized and contained environment in which social norms are able to guide him and lead him from going astray. In this environment, Kurtz was able to balance the aspects of his id and his super-ego easily. In other words, he was capable of knowing his limitations when it came to achieving his desires. However, after going to Africa, he seems to undergo a drastic change in personality and in conscience. His morality and his psyche all seem to deteriorate. Being…
Kurtz is one of the characters of the novel that is able to show who he really is and who he has become through his stay with savages. He is able to show an embodiment of Europe, an assault on European values, and that he has become like a tyrant. Like Marlow, Kurtz wished to travel to Africa in search for adventure and to do philanthropic ideals, of “humanizing, improving, and instructing”(pg.96) the Natives, which was in his initial report to the Company. In the jungle, Kurtz, enjoyed the taste of power and he soon abandoned his philanthropic ideals, and he raised himself on a pedestal. He used to have a concern on how to he was going to bring the “light” of civilization to the Inner Station. But he descended into madness that he will not able to save himself, and as Marlow says that Kurtz has truly gone to the “farthest point of navigation”(pg.…
Heart of darkness is not only an attack on colonialism, but also a criticism of the dark greed that the human heart retains. Moreover, most of the content of the novel is pervaded by symbolic meanings among which destiny and foreshadowing play a leading role, and such is their relevance that both of them are consistently present explicitly and metaphorically throughout the novel. Therefore, the apparently innocent journey to the Congo to meet Kurtz masks a deeper meaning, a symbolic journey to the bottom of the human heart, a heart thirsty for power and wealth ―the heart of darkness ― which is represented by Kurtz and the colonialist lifestyle that surrounds him. “Kurtz 's methods had ruined the district… They only showed that Mr. Kurtz lacked restraint in the gratification of his various lusts, that there was something wanting in him -- some small matter which, when the pressing need arose, could not be found under his magnificent eloquence”.…
the alternative nightmare to Kurtz, the embodiment of lesser evil shrouded in hypocrisy - in light of Kurtz's success, almost as a death shroud…
Madness is another major theme in the story. Kurtz has clearly gone mad from being in the congo too long. He speaks of killing people like it is nothing. However, his madness could be due to the lack of authority he has to answer to, leading to his abuse of power.…
The Heart of Darkness The search for truth and knowledge consumes us all at some point in our lives, but we don't always find what we are looking for in Truth. We wish it to be definitive, but more than that, we search for it with the strong belief that we will find it and be pleased, pleasantly enlightened, and will live better lives for it. In Heart of Darkness, it is shown that this is seldom true. Kurtz was destroyed by the truth he discovered about himself and the world he lived in. He had known and believed a "white" truth about the world he knew. His white truth was one of civilized, genteel ideas and actions. Living amongst the privileged few, the artists, musicians, orators, and other cultured people, he knew nothing of the dark depths of the human heart. When confronted with those horrible realities, he was forced to learn the "black" truth about life and people. His mind couldn't comprehend the truths he had to accept; it was totally contradicting to what he knew, and so he crumbled, selling his soul to sit among demons and devils. He was hollow inside, had no sense of moral or social responsibility, and the black truth he discovered ate away and destroyed him. He regressed to savage behaviors he had previously repressed and let the darkness fill the cold void within him. Because he knew so much blackness, he was unable to live in society again. He crossed over and relinquished all ties to the civilized world, for he had lived the white truths to an extreme, so did he live the black truths. Kurtz showed what happens when the white truths and lies of society are taken away. Kurtz lived and found sustenance in that reality, when it vanished and was replaced by another, darker world, he folded. In our society, we live by restraint. For Kurtz in Africa, all the restraints were removed and he was allowed to have as much candy as he wished, even before dinner. This proved to be too much for him, he went to an extreme and was destroyed by…