Mr. Kurtz: A Symbol of Colonial Atrocities in Congo

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

being committed by the Leopold Regime, countering everything Leopold had been portraying about his endeavors in the Congo. Although the Heart of Darkness is a work of fiction, Horchschild cautions against discrediting the novel’s factual credibility because these were events that Korsenioski actually experienced, and thus are worthy of the reader’s consideration.
I think that Horchschild chose to title the chapter “Meeting Mr. Kurtz” because he wants to draw the reader’s attention to the significant parallels between the fictional character Mr. Kurtz and the people who worked alongside King Leopold II to commit atrocities across the Congo. By using Mr. Kurtz’s name in the chapter title he alerts the reader before beginning that this name will be important in making the connection between the novel and the actual events that occurred under the watch of King Leopold II.