Devotion, Admiration, and Respect. These were all the qualities that Marlow possesses the beginning of his journey as he traveled into the Heart of Darkness. A devotion to his job and his European counterparts. Admiration to one of the best Ivory sells man in the Congo and respect for himself. Conrad shows us that these beliefs that Marlow once thought were true are slowly changing as he spends his days in the jungle. Watching as the Europeans treated the natives with no consideration or respect put much hatred inside Marlow’s heart for the pilgrims(92).Marlow’s change in attitude towards Kurtz changes drastically, as his love and deep admiration for the man has turns into disgust and regret.(39). The respect that Marlow had for himself has turned into lies as he tries to make himself feel like a better person .(93) Throughout Heart of Darkness, Marlow’s voyage down the river Thames has allowed him to undergo a journey into self discovery.
As Marlow arrived to the Central station Marlow was appalled to see how unproductive and rude his European counterparts were. Marlow’s bel...
The epiphany of Marlow in "The Heart of Darkness" has significance in the overall story. The theme of the story is how every man has inside himself a heart of darkness and that a person, being alienated like Kurtz, will become more savage. Marlow, in his epiphany, realizes the savagery of man and how being alienated from modern civilization causes one to be savage and raw. This savagery is shown especially in the death of the helmsman, which is where Marlow's epiphany takes place, but the savagery is also show in Kurtz. The link that Kurtz has to the natives and the death of the helmsman is that the natives work for Kurtz.
Marlow is driven by morality and is able to see what is right and wrong; he is not blinded to the truth. The truth that these “civilized men” are destroying countless numbers of people so that they can worship th...
In Heart of Darkness, all of Joseph Conrad’s characters seem to have morally ambiguous tendencies. The most prominently morally ambiguous character is Kurtz, whose distance from society changes his principles, and leads him to lose all sense of decorum. Conrad takes a cynical tone when describing Marlow's journey. Marlow's voyage through the Congo gives him insight to the horrific, dehumanizing acts that his company and Kurtz conduct. Conrad creates a parallel with the tone of his writing and the misanthropic feelings that the main character experiences. Furthermore, Conrad creates a frame story between Kurtz and Marlow, adding to the symbolism and contrast between contextual themes of light and dark, moral and immoral, and civilization and wilderness. After being sent on a horrific journey into the Congo of Africa, as an agent for the Company to collect ivory, Marlow finds the infamous and mysterious Kurtz. Kurtz, who has totally withdrawn from society, and has withdrawn
Heart of Darkness is Joseph Conrad's tale of one man's journey, both mental and physical, into the depths of the wild African jungle and the human soul. The seaman, Marlow, tells his crew a startling tale of a man named Kurtz and his expedition that culminates in his encounter with the "voice" of Kurtz and ultimately, Kurtz's demise. The passage from Part I of the novel consists of Marlow's initial encounter with the natives of this place of immense darkness, directly relating to Conrad's use of imagery and metaphor to illustrate to the reader the contrast between light and dark. The passage, although occurring earlier on in the novel, is interspersed with Marlow's two opposing points of view: one of naïveté, which comes before Marlow's eventual epiphany after having met Kurtz, and the matured perspective he takes on after all of the events leading up to his and Kurtz's encounter.
In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Marlow can be seen as the hero of the story despite his alternating morals and the fact that Marlow ultimately does nothing to improve the situation in Africa. Throughout the whole narrative Marlow finds himself thrust into many shocking situations yet chooses the path of an observant bystander, giving his own opinion at the time, but no lasting action or motivation is conceived. On top of this fact Marlow’s morals are anything but set in stone; they waver innumerable times over the course of the plot. Yet Marlow is more often than not seen as the prominent hero of the plot. How is this possible? This is because readers aren’t looking for perfection in a character, but depth, and Marlow achieves this level of depth through his epiphanies and the changes that take place in his perception of the world. These revelations in turn challenge the reader to reevaluate themselves.
Marlow is the raconteur of Heart of Darkness, and therefore is one of the more crucial characters within the plot. He embodies the willingness to be valiant, resilient, and gallant, while similarly seeming to be cautiously revolutionary. He is, seemingly the epitome of bravery, going into the jungle. Marlow’s voyage is, in essence, a “night journey into the unconscious, the confrontation with an entity within the self” (Guerard 38). The ominous coast is an allegory for the idea of the unconscious mind. “Watching a coast as it slips by the ship […] there it is before you—smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage, and always mute with an air of whispering” (1...
One interpretation of Marlow's relationship to colonialism is that he does not support it. Conrad writes, "They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now,-nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom" (p. 27-28). Marlow says this and is stressing that the so-called "savages", or Africans, are being treated and punished like they are criminals or enemies when in fact they never did anything. He observes the slow torture of these people and is disgusted with it. Marlow feels sympathy for the black people being slaved around by the Europeans but doesn't do anything to change it because that is the way things are. One can see the sympathy by the way that he gives a starving black man one of his biscuits. "To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire, with no moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe" (p. 54). This statement by Marlow conveys that he doesn't believe that the Europeans have a right to be stripping Africa of its riches. He views the Jungles of Africa as almost it's own living, breathing monster.
Marlow ignores this troubling information, obliviously continuing on his ill-fated path to encounter evil. Marlow also remembers there being “a touch of insanity” (Conrad 41) when his crew comes across a French ship shooting at the African coastline. He notices the insane evil, yet still presses on his doomed journey to the heart of darkness. Marlow additionally shares his retrospective thoughts on his first moments in the Congo:
A long debated issue that has plagued human beings since the fall of man is what leads people to commit evil actions and whether evil is inherent in all people. In the literary work of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Marlow grapples with those two similar issues. They way in which Charlie Marlow, the protagonist and skipper, goes about determining the answers are by observing his and other people's goals and motivations throughout his voyage of discovery and self-enlightenment in the Congo of Africa.
Marlow, the main character in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, is fascinated by unknown areas of the world and also enjoys the feeling of being afloat on water. To quench this curiosity of the mysterious, he ventures into the wilderness to face the adventures that lay inside the “heart of darkness”, Africa. Unbeknownst by him at first, Marlow is viewed as a missionary: the man that will bring light to the “dark” continent (Heart 3). In The Heart of Darkness, Marlow’s aunt refers to him as an “emissary of light, something like a lower sort of apostle”. It is obvious that Marlow is regarded as a missionary, although in his mind, he is simply going to Africa to complete a job.
On one hand, Marlow is saved by his self-discipline while on the other hand Kurtz is doomed by his lack of it. Before Marlow embarked on his voyage to Africa, he had a different view. Due to propaganda, he believed that the colonization of the Congo was for the greater good. In his head, he judged that the people of Africa were savages and that colonization would bring them the elation and riches of civilization. Despite an apparent uneasiness, he assumed that restraint would function there.
Imperialism, Symbolism, and Materialism in Heart of Darkness. In Conrad's Heart of Darkness Marlow, the main character, symbolizes the positiveness of Imperialism. Marlow, as a character, realizes the evil that negative Imperialism has caused and decides it is truly unnecessary. When Marlow states, "I have got a heavenly mission to civilize you," he expresses his good intentions to help the Africans progress and advance.
In Joseph Conrad's novel, The Heart of Darkness, Charlie Marlow narrates the story of his journey into the dark continent, Africa. Through his experiences he learns a lot about himself and about the nature of mankind. He discovers that all humans have the capability within themselves to do good or evil. Outside circumstances substantially influence which path a human will take. Marlow travels not only through the darkness of Africa, but also through the darkness of the human soul.
Conrad uses the character of Marlow to make use of his own thoughts and views about the people in the Congo. He feels pity for them as he sees them falling down carrying heavy packages and Kurtz commanding them like a batallion of troups. This sight angers Marlow and when he gets to Kurtz, it’s too late. Even he has been pulled in by the darkness. Conrad makes an effective distinction between Marlow and Kurtz.
Marlow starts out as just as everyman, trying to put some bread on the table. His original plans were setting out to make money, but his journey turns into so much more. His expedition turns into a quest to find and save Kurtz, and to understand the people so many were prejudice against.