Heart Of Darkness Essay, Research Paper
Most Literate people know that by going into the Heart of the Jungle, Conrad was trying
to relay a message about the heart of man, and the story is worldly wide read as one of the
most symbolic storys of the English language. The story recognizes Marlow, its narrator,
not Kurtz or the brutality of the Belgian officials. Conrad wrote a statement on how he the
story should be interpreted:
My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to
make you hear, to make you feel it, and above all to make you see.
Knowing the Conrad was a writer that lived in his work., writing about the
experiences were almost as if he was writing about himself. The Story was written through
the eyes of Marlow. Marlow is a follower of the sea, His voyage up the Congo was the
experience in river navigation. He is used as a mask , per say, so Conrad can enter the
story and tell it out of his own logical mind. He longs to see Kurtz, in hope s of
appreciating all that Kurtz finds appealing about the jungle.
Marlow does not get a chance to see him until Kurtz is so diseased he looks more
like death itself than a person. There were no good looks or health. In the story Marlow
remarks that Kurtz resembles an animated image of death carved into ivory. . Like
Marlow, Kurtz is seen as an honorable man to many admirers; but he is also a thief,
murderer, persecutor, and he allows himself to be worshipped almost as a god.. Both
Kurtz and Marlow had good intentions to seek, yet Kurtz seems a omniscient being
lacking of basic integrity or sense of responsibility.
In the end the form one person. Marlow and Kurtz are the light and dark selves of
one person. Meaning each one is what the other might have been.
Every person that Marlow meets on his venture contributes to the plot as well as
the overall theme of the story. Kurtz is the violent devil explained at the beginning of the
story. It was his ability to control men through fear and and adoration that led Marlow to
signify this. Throughout the story Conrad builds an unhealthy darkness that never allows
the reader to forget the focus of the story. At every turn he sees evil in the land and in
most of the people. Every image was depressing and blank. The deadly Congo winds
itself through the jungle connecting its tributaries. It seems that Conrad added this as a
significant part of the story. It seems as if the river itself was the only source of good and
life in the jungle.
The setting of these adventurous and moral quests is the great jungle. As a symbol
the jungle encloses all, and in the heart of the journey Marlow enters the dark cavern of his
won heart. It even becomes and image of a vast coffin of evil, in which Kurtz dies but
from which Marlow emerges spiritually reborn.
The manager, in charge of three stations in the jungle, feels Kurtz is a threat to his
position. Marlow sees how the manager is purposely delaying the relay of supplies and
help to Kurtz. He hopes he will die of neglect. This is where the inciting moment of the
story lies. Should the company in Belgium find out the truth about Kurtz s success as a
ivory dealer, they would undoubtedly elevate him to the position of manager. The
manager s insidious and pretending nature opposes all truth.
This story can be the result of two completely different aspects of Conrads life.
One being his journey into the Congo. Conrad had a childhood wish associated with a
disapproved childhood ambition to go to sea. Thus the adventurous Conrad and the
Moralist Conrad may have collided.
Heart of Darkness is a record of things seen and done. Then is was ivory that
poured out the heart of darkness. Now maybe it is Marijuana and Cocaine. There were so
many actual events and facts in the story that it was more of an eye opener to the past than
entertaining. His confrontations as a man are both dangerous and enlightening. Perhaps
man s inhumanity to man is his greatest sin. Since the story closes with a lie, maybe
Conrad was discovering and analyzing the two aspects of truth. Real truth and False truth,
both of which, are ever present in the human soul