Madness is seen as the middle ground, a black and white line, between normality and abnormality, sanity and insanity. Heart of Darkness, a novella written by Joseph Conrad, centers around a sailor named Marlow, who struggles between awareness and madness as he journeys across the Congo River in Africa and comes into contact with the African residents and his surroundings, and Kurtz, a trader of ivory in Africa and commander of a trading post who struggles with madness both physically and mentally. Conrad is able to illustrate the theme of effects of madness through the fictional element of characterization, with both Marlow and Kurtz as his main focuses. One way the author displays the effects of madness is by documenting Marlow’s progression …show more content…
Kurtz, “the most dangerous person of all those whom [he] will encounter (Navarette). He first hears of Mr. Kurtz when the company’s chief accountant mentions his name and tells Marlow that “in the interior you will no doubt meet [him” (Conrad 15) and describes him as “a first class agent…a very remarkable person” (16). Marlow soon becomes obsessed and makes meeting Mr. Kurtz his sole purpose to get into Africa’s interior. The next day, Marlow and his crew of sixty men leave the station “for a two-hundred-mile tramp” (16) to reach Africa’s interior. As more time passes, he delves deeper and deeper into the depths of the African interior to reach Kurtz, he becomes even more mad and realizes that “his estrangement is physical, his unease generated not from himself but from his surroundings” (Maier-Katkin). When describing his surroundings, Marlow states, “Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings…you lost your way on that river…till you thought yourself bewitched and cut off forever from everything you had known once” (30). Although he emphasizes the freedom of the African wilderness, it is befitting that Marlow reverts to a state of madness in a terrain so closely affiliated with primal nature and the beginnings of time. As he treks deeper and deeper still into the …show more content…
Kurtz’s physical surroundings and state also contribute to his madness. Being surrounded by wilderness and the jungle of the African interior makes him go mad and become a man completely different than his assumptions. Although he yearns to conquer the jungle, it instead “gets into his veins, consumes his flesh” (44). He becomes a complete victim to the jungle’s power. The influence of the jungle on his madness is so strong, that Mr. Kurtz succumbs to “two illnesses” while living in the African interior (51). This displays that his mental madness becomes physical; his bodily illness serves as a reflection of his sick, twisted mind. The prime example of this is the presence of decapitated heads that embellish Mr. Kurtz’s station house. These heads “only [show] that Mr. Kurtz [lacks] restraint in the gratification of his various lusts, that there was something wanting in him” (53). The presence of the decapitated heads makes it perfectly clear that Mr. Kurtz has cut all ties to a civilized society and acts as solid evidence of his complete descent into madness. In addition, the position of the decapitated heads suggests that they are an object to be intentionally displayed, rather than a warning. Marlow expresses his concern by stating that “[they] would have been even more impressive…if their faces had not been turned to the house” (52). In the eyes of Kurtz, these heads serve as symbols of
Kurtz had seen the true heart of man, and he knew of the evil. In his
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
Kurtz does not have to adapt to his environment, instead the environment adapted onto him, creating an evil and darker twin. He allows his self-serving greed to control him leading him to his dissolution. It is his imperialistic actions that allowed him to fixate over materialistic things. His obsession with wealth and power leads him to destroy the system he was preaching to the natives. His corruption is made evident as he uses the power he gains to create disorder, leading him to the darkness causing his dissolution.
He provides his readers with information on the daily life of the characters that already live in the brutal, dark life in Africa. Through these characters, his readers see the aftermath of living in such a terrible environment and how it becomes natural to be insane and ill. The Europeans are physically affected by the suffering of the body through the scorching heat that leads to a constant and daily sweat. The illnesses they receive has sabotaged the health of their inner body. With all of these rough, ill circumstances building off each other, the mind travels its way into a dark, unhealthy place.
According to his Intended, Kurtz was an admired man who had a “generous heart” and a “noble mind” (Conrad, 70). However, after his expedition into Africa, he became a changed man; an “insoluble problem” (Conrad, 50). The new Kurtz “[kicks] the very earth to pieces” (Conrad, 61). “Let us say – nerves, [go] wrong, and [causes] him to preside at certain midnight dances ending with unspeakable rites” (Conrad, 45). He has dropped all sense and morality and continues to live on according to his various lusts.
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.
This situation of waiting for Kurtz allows Marlow to fantasize about Kurtz and create a larger than life figure out of a man who he’s never met before. Soon Finding Kurtz becomes an all-out obsession for Marlow; even the night before they meet Kurtz, he wishes to press on despite the danger. Here the reader can see that Marlow is willing to get to Kurtz at all costs. When Marlow does finally make contact with Kurtz, his fantasy carries over into the person who he sees Kurtz as. Marlow is willing to overlook some of Kurtz’s shortcomings and is very willing to see his greatness. Marlow is obviously fond of Kurtz, as it can be seen in the passage when he speaks of Kurtz’s “unextinguishable gift of noble and lofty expression.” Here the reader can observe that Marlow is truly fond of Kurtz’s. The narrator even chooses to side with Kurtz against the manager; even though he hardly knows the man. Kurtz has also managed to get the native people to worship him as a god, and has mastered their language. This makes Marlow respect him even more. Marlow’s point of view allows him to foster both the reality and the fantasy of Kurtz, and though he is very fond of Kurtz, he is still able to see the truth in him as
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.
Marlow "would have as soon expected restraint from a hyena prowling amongst the corpses of a battlefield." The cannibals action is "one of those human secrets that baffle probability." This helps Marlow keep his restraint, for if the natives can possess this quality Marlow feels he certainly can. Kurtz is the essence of the lack of restraint Marlow sees everywhere. Kurtz has "kicked himself loose from the earth."
Kurtz is one of many men sent into the jungle to rape the land and its people of its natural resources. Many men have journeyed into the jungle also refereed as the heart of darkness never to return. Kurtz goes into the jungle and becomes obsessed with the people and the land. Though Kurtz has an obsession with ivory this is not the sole reason for him to overstay his welcome in the jungle.
Both Marlow and Willard became obsessed with a man by the name of Kurtz. Marlow wanted to meet Kurtz very bad. He was so fascinated with his accomplishments that he...
Joseph Conrad’s novella, Heart of Darkness, showcases a steady decline of one 's sanity, through the voyage that the main character, Marlow, takes through the Congo River; this is shown by the french ship firing into the jungle, Kurtz’s letters, and the stops at the three stations: the outer, center, and inner.
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.
...il of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision,-he cried out twice, a cry that was no more that a breath- 'The horror! The horror!' "(Longman, 2000, p. 2240). This is what distinguishes the two men; Kurtz abandoned himself and went over the edge, but Marlow is aware of just how close he was to becoming what Kurtz was.
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.