ENG 105 Blog #1

6.)  Fascination of a Man

In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Marlow tells a story to the narrator of his first trip into the wild unknown of Africa. All the way, Marlow hears stories from different men of a man named Kurtz. While surrounded by the horrors of the Belgian ruled Congo, Marlow starts to cling to Kurtz’s legend as something else to believe in, rather than being on the side of the terrors he witnesses.

            To Harlow, and many others, Kurtz is more than a mere man. He is something to believe in; an alternative choice. Though Kurtz and his ways are very flawed, Marlow sees it to be, a choice between two nightmares, one choice being the cruelty of imperialism, or the depravity of Kurtz.

Kurtz however is not the same man that he was when he entered the Congo. Throughout his journey Marlow bears witness to the effect that the Congo has on Europeans. The deeper and deeper that they travel into, “the heart of darkness” the less sanity that remains. When Marlow is still early in his journey, he hears of Kurtz as being the best Ivory trader, and a man of brilliance. However, when Marlow reaches Kurtz, he is as deep into the heart of darkness as their journey will go. The deeper into the heart of darkness that they enter, the harder it becomes to maintain sanity, and the madness of Kurtz is the ultimate example of what happens to people who stay in the depths of the heart of darkness. They become wild like the jungle.

Even as Marlow and his crew return with Kurtz, his mind is still lost and his behavior, “’Contemptibly childish’” (Conrad 68). Kurtz life fades as swiftly as the current takes the steamboat out of the heart of darkness. Perhaps this is because Kurtz had let himself go mad in the jungle long enough for it to become a part of him. Kurtz believed that the jungle, the ivory, and the inhabitants were all his possessions by the time that Marlow had arrived, and by leaving them he was both metaphorically and literally leaving his life.

As Kurtz lays on his deathbed and cries out, “”The horror! The horror!”” (Conrad 69), he is finally seeing the truth. The darkness represents the madness, and lack of truth that comes with life. As Kurtz lay in his bed slowly leaving the darkness he begins to see what he has done. The terrible acts that he has committed become more apparent, and this painful realization leaves him to suffer the realities of his actions before slipping out of the world.

It is less important what Kurtz actually is than what he represents. Most of Marlow’s ideas of Kurtz are developed without even having met him. The idea of Kurtz is much more powerful than the man himself. Even after meeting Kurtz, and experiencing his loss, Marlow clings to him as a symbol to believe in. This goes to show how strongly humans need to have something to cling to and believe in, sometimes more than the truth.

Works Cited

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Ed. Paul B. Armstrong. W.W.Norton: New            York, 2005