Psychoanalytic Perspective Of Kurtz 's Heart Of Darkness

Kurtz has become corrupt and his obsession with ivory seems to have overcome his morality. He has gained the loyalty of the natives, and has convinced them to be his followers by scaring them into it. He has no mercy for anyone. He puts the savages' heads on a stake if they rebel against him. When Marlow arrives at the camp and sees these severed heads on sticks he says, ."..that was only a savage sight, while I seemed at one bound to have been transported into some lightless region of subtle horrors, where pure, uncomplicated savagery was a positive relief, being

Another great irony in the novel is the attitude Marlow ultimately adopts towards Kurtz. Marlow's beginning impressions from the various reports he has heard about Kurtz are very adverse. Yet, after the events have taken place, Marlow becomes an admirer of Kurtz harboring strong feelings of respect and friendship. The reader would expect Marlow to continue to react to Kurtz in the same adverse manner as the start of the novel, but the opposite occurs. Marlow becomes so attached to Kurtz that he uses all his powers of persuasion to bring Kurtz back to the ship. Marlow then tells the reader that he could “not betray Mr. Kurtz—it was ordered I should never betray him—it was written I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice” (94). Thus Marlow has now become almost a follower of Kurtz knowing the full extent of the evil that prevails in Kurtz. Evidently, Marlow's own primitive instinct have come to the surface resulting in a bond between Kurtz and himself. So another civilized European man who is an embodiment of reason and sanity has fallen victim to the influences of savagery.

As the story continues, Marlow meets Mr. Kurtz who represents the id. Kurtz has submitted to the id and is not ashamed of it: “You can’t judge Mr. Kurtz as you would an ordinary man” (135). Marlow and others couldn’t judge him for the things he did because he was so far removed from society and traditional civilization that his id became unbalanced which is why Kurtz is characterized as being “sick”. When Kurtz says “The horror! The horror” it shows that his ego has achieved balance. Kurtz is

Joseph Conrad's novella, Heart of Darkness, describes a life-altering journey that the protagonist, Marlow, experiences in the African Congo.  The story explores the historical period of colonialism in Africa to exemplify Marlow's struggles.  Marlow, like other Europeans of his time, is brought up to believe certain things about colonialism, but his views change as he experiences colonialism first hand. This essay will explore Marlow's view of colonialism, which is shaped through his experiences and also from his relation to Kurtz.  Marlow's understanding of Kurtz's experiences show him the effects colonialism can have on a man's soul.

As the Heart of Darkness snakes its way into the savage shadows of the African continent, Joseph Conrad exposes a psycho-geography of the collective unconscious in the entangling metaphoric realities of the serpentine Congo. Conrad’s novella descends into the unknowable darkness at the heart of Africa, taking its narrator, Marlow, on an underworld journey of individuation, a modern odyssey toward the center of the Self and the center of the Earth. Ego dissolves into soul as, in the interior, Marlow encounters his double in the powerful image of ivory-obsessed Kurtz, the dark shadow of European imperialism. The dark meditation is graced by personifications of anima in Kurtz’ black goddess, the savagely magnificent consort of the underworld,

In Heart of Darkness, Kurtz is the very representation of the oppression which is impressed upon the natives of the Congo by white men seeking to spread imperialism.

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness has allowed me to view the world through a multitude of new lenses. In seeing Kurtz and Marlow’s disintegration when removed from society’s watchful eye, I began to understand that all people have a streak of darkness in them under the right circumstances. While the narrator, and many readers at the time of this novella’s publication, believed that the African natives being colonized were “savages”, this book sheds light on the true brutes in this scenario: the thoughtless Europeans. The other complexity that I never truly understood until reading this book, is the idea that there is a single story told about Africans in Western literature. Africa is portrayed as weak, primitive, and impoverished in most books

He is telling his story of his adventure to his job on the Congo, presenting the story inside of a story notion. In the reminiscent story he is telling, he talks about a man named Kurtz, the ivory manager at the company is going to work for in the Congo. He learned about the characteristics of Kurtz, which happened to be the opposite of his. At first, he is slight displeased and shows disgust towards the actions of the other workers’ at the company and Marlow; stopping in plot ever so often to regain his thoughts because it made him upset. However, as he continued deeper in the Congo, he starts to change into Kurtz making Kurtz and Marlow complex. The reader can not tell if they are different people or perhaps the same. Before this transformation, Marlow and Kurtz was already similar in a few ways. For example, Marlow and Kurtz both shared a certain amount of respect for the natives, Kurtz even had a mistress that was native. However, they may have a certain level of respect for them they both feel that they are savage like and they are not equal to the white men. This shows the white man’s burden, of the white man that feels the need to educate the natives. Marlow even ends up agreeing later on in the book that they should be

Joseph Conrad 's Heart of Darkness is both a dramatic tale of an arduous trek into the Belgian Congo at the turn of the twentieth century and a symbolic journey into the deepest recesses of human nature. On a literal level, through Marlow 's narration, Conrad provides a searing indictment of European colonial exploitation inflicted upon African natives. By employing several allegoric symbols this account depicts the futility of the European presence in Africa.

At the end of his journey he realized the reason that everyone who went on this expedition was trying to make their fortune and that is how Kurtz eventually died. His “appetite for more ivory had got the better” of him. No matter what the cost to himself and the people around him, he was going to be the best and get the most money. His selfishness eventually caused his death when the manager downstream would not send food because he hoarded all of the ivory all to himself. Marlow knew that Kurtz was very serious about his job when he saw “heads on the stakes” in front of his house. Which could have been a warning to other people who try to come get his ivory. But the interesting part was most of the heads are faced toward his house. Kurtz wanted attention and loved to have power. These heads could be there to adore him just like the natives when he was with them. Kurtz search for power and wealth left in its wake death and destruction, showing that humanities quest for wealth leads to destruction.

The final thing Kurtz had an affect on was the other characters development; specifically Marlow’s. Marlow spent his journey on the Congo listening to so many stories about Kurtz that he becomes obsessed with meeting him. At one point in the story, Marlow finds out there is a possibility that Kurtz is dead and he admits that, “For the moment that was the dominant thought. There was a sense of extreme disappointment, as though I had found out I had been striving after something altogether without a substance” (41). When Marlow finally meets Kurtz he is a little disappointed. He finds out that Kurtz actually isn’t as amazing as he expected. Marlow is thrown a back but doesn’t give up complete hope. When Kurtz dies, and says his final words, Marlow realizes that

The standard in the Victorian era was the men were far away, while the women were morally supportive, but oblivious to the reality of the man’s work, although they economically benefitted from it. This proves the way power corrupts because Kurtz abused the opportunities given after falling from the edge of moral standards, even after his Intended attempts to show him the way. In 1902, when Conrad wrote the book, it was common to base culture off of superiority, therefore it was seen that Kurtz was in the Congo for the redemption of natives. In the text, Joseph Conrad gives much respect to the native tribes, Mr. Kurtz, however, has none. “Exterminate all brutes!” (Conrad 50) he says, claiming that if he cannot change the natives, they should be thrown out. He, and many people like him, introduced new cultures to societies that did not want it. The corruption of the spirituality found in some cultures is thus caused by the hunger for power from interference from separate societies.

In Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, the imperialism of Africa is described. Conrad tells the story of the cruel treatment of the natives and of the imperialism of the Congo region through the perspective of the main character, Marlow. Throughout the novel, Marlow describes how the Europeans continuously bestow poor treatment to the native people by enslaving them in their own territory. Analyzing the story with the New Criticism lens, it is evident that Conrad incorporates numerous literary devices in Heart of Darkness, including similes, imagery, personification, and antitheses to describe and exemplify the main idea of cruel imperialism in Africa discussed throughout the novella.

  Kurtz was a personal embodiment, a dramatization, of all that Conrad felt of futility, degradation, and horror in what the Europeans in the Congo called 'progress,' which meant the exploitation of the natives by every variety of cruelty and treachery known to greedy man. Kurtz was to Marlow, penetrating this country, a name, constantly recurring in people's talk, for cleverness and enterprise. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is a portrait of the degeneration of the ideal of Kurtz symbolizing the degeneration of the ideal of colonialism as 'civilizing work'.

As Kurtz’s title grows, he is able to work his way into the natives’ minds. He becomes their leader, even though he is an outsider. Little does Marlow know, Kurtz’s corruptness and his imperialistic and colonialist efforts to rule the African land would become his demise. In the end, Marlow understands that Kurtz is not all he is made out to be, and finds that his practices are harsher than necessary as he reads in Kurtz’s book his plans to “Exterminate all the brutes!” (50). Kurtz is referring to the natives he befriends and uses to his advantage. While Marlow and Kurtz move throughout the Congo as foreigners of a “First World” country, the Natives of the Congo are forces reconcile with Kurtz’s colonization and rule of their land and over their people. What Conrad presents in Heart of Darkness are the dangers of naiveté regarding “First World” practices of imperialism and colonialism, and then becoming aware, as Marlow gradually does, of their implications.