A White Lie in the Heart of Darkness
“He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision, – he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath – ‘The horror! The horror!’” (Conrad, Heart of Darkness, pg112)1. After returning to Brussels, Marlow pays a visit to Kurtz’ intended and brings these final words of Kurtz with him. When asked to reveal Kurtz’ last declaration, Marlow offers this: “‘The last word he pronounced was – your name.’” (Heart, pg123). He lies.
In this situation, with the possibility existing of inflicting severe emotional damage on an already grieving soul, should Marlow have lied? Of course, the answer is neither simple nor short, and depends heavily on who is asked. The most relevant perspective naturally comes from Marlow himself. Marlow makes his feelings about lying clear early in his adventure. “You know I hate, detest, and can’t bear a lie, not because I am straighter than the rest of us, but simply because it appals me. There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in lies, – which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world – what I want to forget. It makes me miserable and sick…” (Heart, pp49-50). Marlow doesn’t hold much back here. He believes that lies are what is wrong with the world. That said, it seems that a third-person Marlow would severely disapprove of his actions, and would believe that he should have told the truth. This becomes even more evident after a glance at Marlow’s reaction after he does lie. “It seemed to me that the house would collapse before I could escape, that the heavens would fall upon my head.” (Heart, pg123). Marlow obviously sees his actions as in err, and is waiting for his punishment from above.
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...(see Sources).
2 This quote, and all other quotes from Immanuel Kant’s article, On the Supposed Right
to Lie because of Philanthropic Concerns, comes from the third edition of the James.
W. Ellington translation. The citation numbers follow from the section numbers in
that edition (see Sources).
Sources
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. London: Penguin Books, 1995.
Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978.
Kant, Immanuel. Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals (Grundlegung zur Metaphysik
der Sitten). Translated by James W. Ellington. Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1993.
Kant, Immanuel. “On the Supposed Right to Lie because of Philanthropic Concerns”
(“Uber ein vermeintes Recht aus Menschenliebe zu lugen”). Translated by James W. Ellington. Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1993.
What cannot be ignored about the ending of his story, however, is what Marlow ended up doing. When it came down to Marlow telling Kurtz’s Intended about her deceased husband, he continued on to let her believe he lived and died a moral, good-natured man. What strikes deepest is when she asked for his last words, Marlow lied completely and said, “The last word he pronounced was- your name”. He went on to justify himself because it would have been “... too dark altogether” to tell her the truth. Not only did Conrad intend Marlow’s quest for his own self-knowledge, but for that of the reader as well, leaving them to see how in order to keep society functioning, it will never be aware of its true darkness at
One should notice the importance of the Fool very early in the play. In Scene 4, Lear asks for his Fool twice. The second time is just a few lines after the first. He seems to need his Fool urgently. Yet the Fool has been pining over the loss of Cordelia (1.4. ). Yet Lear orders the Fool to come to him.
Marlow never elaborates on how the lie(s) made him feel. I believe Marlow's true character was honest and noble and suffered from this blow to his earlier righteous abhorrence. Possibly these lie(s) could be classified as irony (out of respect for Marlow's true character) - the use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning or an incongruity between what is expected and what actually occurs. Or is that the first step into the Heart of Darkness? Justifying sins based on intentions or results.
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After declaring his passionate hate of lying it is odd to see the complete reversal of character in Marlow by the end of the book. Then perhaps it is not a change but merely an unexpected extension of his character that gives a different dimension to his personality.
Towards the end of the story, right before Kurtz dies, Marlow looks at Kurtz, and says “I saw on that ivory face the expression of somber pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror-of an intense and hopeless despair.” (P.118), and then Kurtz screams, “The horror, the horror.” (P.118) and he dies. He is referring to what he sees inside himself. This is just what Marlow was afraid he was becoming, he looked deep inside himself, and saw Kurtz.
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