Heart Of Darkness Moral Analysis Essay

Marc Locke
UNV-106HN
October 28, 2014
Professor Santos
A Moral Analysis of The Heart of Darkness In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, characters are confronted with ethical dilemmas that transmute their observations and engagements. Marlow, the character the audience follows, is particularly affected by these dilemmas and is coerced to decide what is authentically right and what is erroneous. Conrad’s novel dares readers to sympathize with Marlow and endeavor to not only understand his actions, but contemplate what they would do in his given situation. Marlow’s meetings with both the savages of the Congo and Kurtz’s wife place him in a position of inner struggle. Marlow’s decisions are meticulously illuminated through both the normative systems

Because of the way that Marlow has never experienced this crowd previously, he does not know how to cooperate with them or clarify their physical qualities. Case in point, when Marlow first sets his eyes on a gathering of African Americans he rapidly states, “You could see from afar the white of their eyeballs glistening. They shouted, sang; their bodies streamed with perspiration; they had faces like grotesque masks” (Conrad, 16). With only one look, Marlow is making generalizations about the whole African American populace. His cliché nature is seen again when a percentage of the locals are slouched under trees and he expresses that they are not foes or criminals, yet in any case he leaves as quick as he can as far from the indigenous as he can. Marlow does not know who these individuals are or what to consider them, yet that does not pardon his judgment and scorn towards them. Finally, Marlow demonstrated that he had no sensitivity towards the Africans when he watches them in the Congo 's thick woodland expressing, “They were dying slowly it was very clear … nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in

Kurtz who turns into the pioneer of the savages, was indeed the motivation behind why Marlow wound up in the Congo in any case. Marlow needed to meet “Mr. Kurtz” (Conrad 23), which lead him to embark to an obscure region. At the point when the two at long last meet, Marlow discovers that Kurtz is a very different figure than how he is described. The savages, or the Congo population treat him as their deity, which leads Kurtz into a spiral of insanity and savage behavior, who needs nothing to do with Marlow or his endeavor. Because of the way that Kurtz is not who he is said to be, Marlow scorns him, however still expects on bringing him to Europe, as he was procured to do so. Before they can return Kurtz develops a terminal illness and does not have the vitality to survive the outing back and dies prior to leaving the Congo. His final words were “The horror! The horror!” (Conrad 96), in which he was depicting the severity brought upon the Congo by the organization, as well as he himself. Upon Marlow 's come back to Europe he goes to visit Kurtz 's wife to let her know of her spouse 's passing. Amid their discussion Mrs. Kurtz asks Marlow what her spouse 's last words were, and he thought for a little while before he reacted. Deciding to relieve Mrs. Kurtz the dread with which her spouse had made, he misleads her and says that Kurtz 's last words were her name. In doing