The Transformation Of Kurtz In Joseph Conrad's Heart Of Darkness

McIlvenna makes a crucial point when she tells that Great Britain saw Georgia as a failure due to the colonists challenging the class system. It was due to self-interested parties that convinced England that Georgia was done for. These were parties were ones that encouraged such things as slavery. However, the settlers didn’t want slaves at all, they were strongly opposed to it. For example,

Europeans became helpless to these diseases, so by 1833, the British government banned the slavery. The end of slavery brought the Europeans interests in imperialism and conquering colonies. European countries were interested in Africa for many reasons. Africa was filled with such incredible natural resources such as; copper, ivory, and rubber, the europeans countries competed among themselves

Published in the year 1902, Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” is a story told in the frame narrative voice. The story talks about a voyage the main character, Marlow, embarks on. Throughout Conrad’s novella, Marlow journeys up the Congo River which is assumed to be in Africa. “Heart of Darkness” can be observed and viewed as a mythical journey in search of oneself as well as the search for what we believe is the truth. Marlow also travels up the Congo River in pursuit of a white man, Kurtz, who is an ivory trader.

In Joseph's Conrad's novella, Heart of Darkness, Marlow narrates his journey to the dark and mysterious Congo. As a young sailor looking for a job, Marlow finds himself sailing to the Congo for one of Belgium's ivory companies. Marlow travels to one of the stations, where he meets the manager and is tasked with bringing back a renowned ivory collector in the interior, Kurtz. Sailing into the foggy Congo river, Marlow faces an attack from a nearby African tribe, and subdues them with the ship's blow horn. Arriving at the inner station, Marlow meets a Russian harlequin, a follower of Kurtz, who describes his experience with Kurtz.

According to Baldwin, his mother even acknowledged the absurd ideas his father had. He said “It was not until he refused to eat because, he said, his family was trying to poison him that my mother was forced to accept as a fact what had, until then, been only an unwilling suspicion. When he was committed, it was discovered that he had tuberculosis and, as it turned out, the disease of his mind allowed the disease of his body to destroy him. For all the doctors could not force him to eat, either, and, though he was fed intravenously, it was clear from the beginning that there was no hope for him” (54). This is another example of his father’s stubbornness, but more importantly it shows how his father wouldn’t even trust his own family members at times.

Whenever the demon feels despair he remembered his deviser " an in the bitterness of my heart, I curse[s] him"(177). He senses that there is nobody who care about him and his inventor will never welcome him. Because of loneliness he begins to resentful toward Frankenstein. At the end when then Frankenstein died, monster cried with sincerely and wholehearted. He says, " I shall die, and what I now feel be no longer felt"(Shelley 197).

Achebe labels Conrad as “a thoroughgoing racist” (Achebe, 1977) because of his insulting descriptions of native Africans. Perhaps Achebe focused too much on Conrad’s description of native Africans that he failed to see the bigger picture – Conrad’s message about imperialism. Through Marlow, the readers get to vicariously experience witnessing the harsh conditions of the native Africans under the control of Europeans. Marlow saw “black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth” (Conrad & Walker, 1981, p. 25) as the Europeans in that area fire on a camp of natives. This appalled Marlow; he does not approve of European presence in Africa.

Deep in the heart of every former colony there was imperialism clawing through their resources. Many old colonies were breeding grounds for imperialism because they had many rich and otherwise unobtainable resources. Imperialism is using someone else’s resources for your own advantage, and possibly to their disadvantage. It is seen throughout Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness through the extensive ivory trade and enslavement of the Congolese natives. This imperialism is highlighted through the repetitive use of light and dark.

Within human nature lies animalistic behavior from which our vices stem. Societal rules and restraints allow us to suppress these more animalistic instincts and advance as a species. However, when one has access to the power that comes with advancement but is placed in a world without the necessary constraints to control this power new vices are formed fueled by greed and self-righteous attitudes. The novella, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, explores the darkness within and what draws it out of one 's soul. Conrad uses Africa as a metaphor for the motherland of this darkness, a world without rules; through setting description, character description, and obvious aspects of the plot that comment on the need for civilization, Conrad explains

The first chapter of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness depicts the journey that Charles Marlow, the protagonist of the story, makes into the heart of Africa in order to become a captain of a steamboat. The novel begins with an introduction of various characters, including Marlow by an unnamed narrator. Marlow and the unnamed narrator are aboard the Nellie and the boat has been temporarily docked in order to wait for a change in tide. During that short break Marlow begins to talk about one of his previous journeys. Marlow, who describes himself as someone who has wanted to travel around the world even as a child, sees a map of Africa and the Congo River and remembers about a trading company operating there.