Heart Of Darkness Morally Ambiguous Character Essay

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 Kurtz, who has totally withdrawn from society, and has withdrawn

Marlow’s journey into the Congo River is treacherous and unpredictable. Therefore, in a desperate need for civilization and escape from savagery, the boat serves as a sanctum from the natives, and becomes the link to moral civility. Throughout Marlow's voyage, he and his crew encounter mass amounts of fog. The fog symbolizes ambiguity in its most primal form, not only obscuring but it also distorts. The fog impares not just physical visibility, but which often ends up being wrong, which suggests that the fog has both literally and figuratively clouded Kurtz’s judgement. Marlow’s need to be on the boat, reflects the boat as a safe haven, a place where he can examine his own moral conscious more clearly. When his is not on the boat, he is less decisive and his judgement and moral compass are