The infinite battle between good and evil can destroy, refine, or rebuild the human soul by means of choice. However, good is stronger than evil and someday, the power of good will dominate. In the novel Heart of Darkness, Conrad illustrates pure evil and its capability to consume one’s soul. The title Heart of Darkness symbolizes the true evil in man, the improper use of knowledge and the downfall of civilization.
“I’ve seen the devil of violence, and the devil of greed, and the devil of hot desire; but by all stars! These were strong, lusty, red-eyed devils, that swayed and drove men—men, I tell you.'; (Conrad, 81). Violence, greed and passionate desires are elements that help unleash the evil that lurks in man, which symbolizes the Heart of Darkness. The character change of Kurtz is an example of this evil. Kurtz is first describe as “a very remarkable person'; by the accountant. "Mr. Kurtz was at present in charge of a trading post, a very important one, in the ivory-country,… Sends in as much ivory as all the others put together." (Conrad, 84)
However, when Kurtz experience power, greed overcomes him and he uses his intelligence and violence to accomplish his passionate desire. “ He is an emissary of pity and science and progress; and devil knows what else.'; (Conrad, 92). It is believed that there is evil in everyone and it can be triggered by mere stupidity of man. The evil in Kurtz is unleashed because he choose his deep desires for ivory and did not look ahead in the future of what will become of him. Consequently, his soul is consumed for eternal damnation. "The improper use of knowledge is another example that symbolizes the Heart of Darkness. One of Kurtz’s advantages is his deep voice and his ability to speak.
That man could talk. He electrified large meetings. He had faith-don’t you see? –he had the faith. He could get himself to believe anything-anything. He would have been a splendid leader of an extreme party." (Conrad, 151)
Kurtz used his knowledge about the weather and his power of speech to manipulate the natives into believing that he was a god.
"He was not afraid of the natives; they would not stir till Mr. Kurtz gave the word. His ascendancy was extraordinary. The camps of these people surrounded the place, and the chiefs came everyday and they would crawl… ‘I don’t want to know anything of the ceremonies used when approaching Mr.
Mr. Kurtz is a character in Konrad Korzenioski’s, a river captain in the Congo, scathing novel Heart of Darkness. Writing under his pen name Joseph Conrad, the main character Marlow journeys to a Congo post where he meeting Mr. Kurtz, a man who bears many similarities to agents of King Leopold’s II crimes. In the novel, the narrator encounters a fence displayed with shrunken African heads in front of the house of Mr. Kurtz. Horchschild states that this “Inner Station” that Marlow sees is based on Korzenioski’s encounter at the Congo port Stanley Falls. This is corroborated by the fact that George Washington Williams, a journalist who experienced Stanley Falls around the same time Korzenioski was said to be there. Both writers detail the atrocities
In the novel, Heart of Darkness, Kurtz’s greed and maliciousness consume his actions and take over his body. Since Kurtz gains authority from his copious amounts of Ivory, he becomes arrogant and abuses his power. He murders groups of natives and hangs their heads on stakes to show his control which instills a sense of self validation. Sarcastically, Marlow states, “evidently the appetite for more ivory had got the better of the-what shall I say?-less material aspirations”(Conrad 86). He displays his cruelty by placing material wealth like Ivory above human lives. This obsession eats him alive, and slowly, he becomes his treasure. His body deteriorates, and Marlow “saw on that ivory face the expression of sombre pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror. . .”(105). He becomes a reflection of his greed which leaves him “hollow at the core” with no moral compass(87). In the beginning, the setting takes place in an ironic town called Brussels. Conrad alludes to a book in the Bible and states, “I arrived in a city that always makes me think of a whited sepulchre. Prejudice no doubt”( 13). In the Bible, a whited sepulchre represents the burial site for the deceased and also represents a hypocrite. As the bodies rot underground and the bones take their place, the sepulchre serves as a comparison to the hidden impurity and sinfulness throughout Western civilization. The inside holds the truth while the outside
While there are differences between Francis Ford Coppola’s film, Apocalypse Now!, and Joseph Conrad novel, The Heart of Darkness, Kurtz and his influence on the main character remain very similar. Both the movie and novel depict a protagonist’s struggle to travel upstream in a ship in search of a man named Kurtz. While doing so, Marlow (The Heart of Darkness)/Willard (Apocalypse Now!) become progressively fascinated with Kurtz. Kurtz is claimed to have a profound influence on his followers and is becoming a huge influence on Marlow/Willard as well.
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
In Heart of Darkness, Kurtz is a symbol of truth and brutality. Due to Kurtz’s love for truth and brutality, his actions that develope his reputation are driven by his perception of truth, the only way to live is through power and brutality. One example of Kurtz’s actions being dictated by his perception of truth is the ornamental heads Marlow finds when he reaches the inner station, we find that Kurtz has used his
When reading each page, a sort of investigation begins in trying to figure out how Kurtz became insane. However, that investigation was not fully closed because in the end no one knew what had happened to him. In a way his character presented the idea that perhaps the darkness, his darkness was his own and was all along in him waiting to come out. Because there were other men living and working in the Congo who had not become insane as he did, such as the Russian trader or the ivory company’s accountant.
Zhao, Jiping. "The Tragedy of Kurtz--An Analysis of Kurtz in Heart of Darkness." Asian Social Science 4.6 (2008). Ccsenet. Web. 19 May 2014. .
In Joseph Conrad’s short story, “Heart of Darkness,” the narrator has mixed emotions about the man Kurtz. The narrator spends a large portion of the story trying to find Kurtz. During this time the narrator builds a sense of respect and admiration for Kurtz; however when he finally finds Kurtz, he discovers that he is somewhat disgusted by Kurtz’s behavior. The narrators somewhat obsessive behavior regarding Kurtz is quickly changed into disappointment. The narrator sees that the man who Kurtz is, and the man he created Kurtz to be in his mind are two very different people. He finds that Kurtz is not a reasonable man of justice and reason, but an unstable man whose cruelty and deception is awful. In Joseph Conrad’s short story, “Heart of Darkness,”
In both Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now, both authors develop the scene in order to highlight the evolution of Kurtz’s character. Each scene reflects similar themes of the animalistic nature brought out of man. Kurtz manifestation reflects the effects that temptations have upon us. In Heart of Darkness, the hunger for material wealth and the sacrifice of blood displays society’s imperial ideology. Conrad uses this scene to show the hidden evil within man, and creates a physical representation of the mental distortion caused by malicious acts. While Conrad indirectly voices the absurdity of war, Coppola uses Kurtz as an example of a soldier driven into insanity by war. Though Coppola fails to show the physical effect of insanity, the scene of darkness that engulfs him displays a similar effect.
One of the central tragedies of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is the insanity of Mr. Kurtz. How could a man who seemed so good, so stable, suddenly become so mentally lacking? Through the deterioration of Kurtz’s personality and Marlow’s response to his breakdown, Conrad explores the elements of strong versus weak characters.
Kurtz's character is fully facet (in Conrad's Heart of Darkness), not because of his conventional roll of antagonist, but for his roll in a historical fiction as a character with important roll in society, influenced by those close to him. Kurtz makes some key developments in the way he interacts with others, in large part due to the words and actions of society and Kurtz's acquaintances.
This essay will compare and contrast the presentation of Kurtz in an extract from Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" with that of Faustus in Marlowe's play. From the first scene of the play Faustus is a condemned man, signing away his soul to the Devil in return for temporal power, "This night I conjure though I die therefore" Kurtz is also presented to us as a man in the final stages of his life, rapidly approaching death, "Kurtz's life was running swiftly, too, ebbing, ebbing out of his heart into the sea of inexorable time". Faustus is presented as a flawed character whose intellect and ambition seal his own fate. His ambition to achieve God-like omnipotence whilst living on Earth is made possible by his intellectual perception of the world. In the first scene Faustus lists the discoveries and ideas of all the great authors he has studied: theology, philosophy, logic, medicine then law.
"Heart of Darkness , which follows closely the actual events of Conrad's Congo journey, tells of the narrator's fascination by a mysterious white man, Kurtz, who, by his eloquence and hypnotic personality, dominates the brutal tribesmen around him. Full of contempt for the greedy traders who exploit the natives, the narrator cannot deny the power of this figure of evil who calls forth from him something approaching reluctant loyalty."[1]
Even from the beginning, Kurtz was made out to be an icon, an idol. To Marlow, he was the only thing that made sense in the company, on a journey, in a wilderness full of confusion. The company hailed him as their biggest asset and success. He delivered massive amounts of ivory to them and they liked that very much. Kurtz represented many things to many people. In class, we described him as a representation of the wilderness, the voice, a superior God-like being, an imperialist who was a symbol of colonization, and a symbol of the jungle. We also considered him a symbol of power, dehumanized, unhuman, a rule-breaker who had to face his consequences, and a once-great man who was trapped somewhere in the layers of the Heart of Darkness. Late in the book, several characters mention all the things that Kurtz could have been, his great potential. Kurtz's cousin came to Marlow wishing to know about Kurtz's last moments. He told Marlow that Kurtz had once been a great musician (Conrad, pg. 71). Later, a journalist told him that Kurtz had the potential to be an excellent politician (Conrad, pg. 71). It was also said that he would have been a splendid lawyer. No one could deny that whatever he was, and whatever he did, as his cousin said, Kurtz was "a universal genius" (Conrad, pg 157). Kurtz also possessed a “gift of expression.” (Stewart, 361) He had an uncanny ability to persuade and influence people with his articulate way of communicating. Perhaps it was his extreme promise that lead to his failure. The higher the height you fall from the greater the fall. He was not the only one in the jungle that failed, but his fall was worse because he had the most potential. All the characters reacted to their new environment differently. A common bond was that all of them were desperately hanging on to anything fam...
The main character in Conrad's novel, Heart of Darkness, isKurtz. Kurtz no longer obeys the authority of his superiors who believe that he has become too extreme and has come to employ "unsound methods" (Coppola, 1979; Longman, 2000). Marlow is sent to retrieve Kurtz from the evil influences in the Congo, and a wild journey on a tainted river ensues. Along the way, Marlow learns about the real Kurtz and finds himself identifying with and becoming dangerously fond of the man.