Mr. Kurtz: A Symbol of Colonial Atrocities in Congo

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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

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