lieshod The Lies in Conrad's Heart of Darkness Essay examples

In the first parts of the book most of the characters Marlow meets tell him all good things about Kurtz. When Marlow inquires about who Kurtz is he is told by the chief account of the company that Kurtz is, "a first class agent...he is a very remarkable person." (p. 33). Another person tells Marlow that Kurtz

An interpretation of Marlow's changing feelings towards Kurtz is that he ends up being disgusted and

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

Marlow finds his steamer at the bottom of the river and a manager who seems to take it for granted that nothing will be done efficiently. How does Marlow react? How does he adjust? What does he mean when he says there are no "external checks'?

He carries this kind and chivalrous thought with him when he visits Kurtz's Intended, and with it in mind cannot bring himself to shatter her beautiful fantasy world by telling her the truth of Kurtz's last words. In his own declaration Marlow claims there is a taint of death in lies. If he had been completely truthful with the Intended and told her Kurtz's actual last words, "The horror, the horror" (Longman 2240), he would have given her more than a taint of death. He would have shared with her some of the mental images his imagination had spawned since he heard those final words. He would have given her a 'flavour of mortality', which he claims to hate and detest in the world. Hate and detest are very powerful words which would

In Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness we see various attitudes toward morality. It is extremely difficult, maybe impossible, to deduce the exact endorsement of morality that Conrad intended. Conrad provides his readers with several instances where the interpretation of morality is circumstantial, relative, and even "indeterminable." One finds many situations in the novel that lie somewhere between morality, immorality, and amorality. A few examples from the novel that illustrate this idea are: the depiction of Kurtz as revealed through Marlowe, Marlowe's own actions and thoughts, and the Kurtz' death scene.

    Marlow's oscillation between viewpoints is almost startling in its rapidity. On his very first meeting with the natives of the Congo, he swings from one pole to the other in only a few sentences:

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

     Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is a novel about a man named Marlow and his journey into the depths of the African Congo. Marlow is in search of a man named Kurtz, an ivory trader. Though Marlow?s physical journey seems rather simple, it takes him further into his own heart and soul than into the Congo. The setting, symbols and characters each contain light and dark images, these images shape the central theme of the novel.

The mysteriousness of the title is the first indicator of the mysteriousness of Marlow's journey into Africa. Seemingly no one--Marlow, Kurtz, the reader--is quite certain if any conclusions he draws over the course of the story are completely accurate.

     The film also depicts the character of Kurtz in a very different light. Conrad builds up the appearance of Kurtz so much that his first scene is intentionally anti-climactic. He is discovered to be an ailing, elderly gentlemen, malnourished and on the verge of death. Marlow himself is simultaneously impressed with and disappointed by Kurtz. He enjoys listening to the old man’s philosophies, but he is let down by Kurtz’s lack of realistic thinking. He has clearly lost his mind, and with it, some of his credibility and mysticism.

Marlow states, “She seemed to know all about them and about me, too. An eerie feeling came over me.” about the old knitter (Conrad 63). According to Thomas Dilworth and Joseph Labine, these women are symbols of the fates in greek mythology which Marlow finds eerie (45). It is important to note that he does not feel eerie or even disgust toward Kurtz who even went through this change, moreover, at the end he still praises him. Comparing these to reactions to the knowledge of fate and the morality of the world, it is clear that Marlow even before knowing the true knowledge of the world is uncomfortable with women knowing it showing his sexism and lack of enlightenment in this

Inherent inside every human soul is a savage evil side that remains repressed by society. Often this evil side breaks out during times of isolation from our culture, and whenever one culture confronts another. History is loaded with examples of atrocities that have occurred when one culture comes into contact with another. Whenever fundamentally different cultures meet, there is often a fear of contamination and loss of self that leads us to discover more about our true selves, often causing perceived madness by those who have yet to discover their own self.  Joseph Conrad’s book, The Heart of Darkness is a story about Man’s journey into his self, the discoveries to be made there and about

Marlow is the wanderer into the unconscious mind; he is meandering through his deepest understanding of himself. In other words, he is a symbol for the archetype meeting himself in the depths of his unconscious mind. Not only is he initially finding meaning through his encounter with Kurtz but also he is attempting to find meaning through the retelling of his story. Marlow’s voyage ventures “deep into his own personal heart of darkness, where lurks the impulse to savagery that he had never acknowledged while in the deceptive milieu of a sophisticated city” (Spivack 432). Marlow is the principal character through which

     Even from the beginning, Kurtz was made out to be an icon, an idol. To Marlow, he was the only thing that made sense in the company, on a journey, in a wilderness full of confusion. The