What is the ending of Heart of Darkness?
When she asks about Kurtz’s final words, Marlow lies: “your name,” he tells her. Marlow’s story ends there. Heart of Darkness itself ends as the narrator, one of Marlow’s audience, sees a mass of brooding clouds gathering on the horizon—what seems to him to be “heart of an immense darkness.”
What is the message in Heart of Darkness?
The novel Heart of Darkness shows that racial discrimination is dominating in Africa and other parts of the world. Marlow also understands that “different complexions and flattened nose” means, Europeans were permitted to take the possession of the land from that race.
Why is Heart of Darkness important?
The essence of savagery, brutality and cruelty sums up in the existence of Kurtz. Kurtz’s mission was to civilize the natives, to educate them, to improve their way of living and the important one is to bring the light into their lives and into that dark territory.
What does Kurtz symbolize in Heart of Darkness?
Kurtz, one of the leading characters, the other being Marlow, the narrator of the soty, represents many symbols in the novel. Firstly, he symbolizes the greed and the commercial mentality of the white people of the western countries. Secondly, he symbolizes the white man’s love of power.
What is imperialism in Heart of Darkness?
Imperialism means the period of colonization of African and Asian countries by European states, the USA and Japan in the 19th century, on the other hand it means an idea that was disseminated since the beginning of the modern times around the 16th century. …
Why is it called Heart of Darkness?
The phrase ‘Heart of Darkness’ refers to the inmost region of Africa (which was in those times still in the process of being explored) and the black people who still led primitive lives. The title is appropriate for the novel because Marlow has described his experiences of the Congo and people of Congo.
What are Kurtz last words?
Literary Source of The horror! The horror! Kurtz speaks this line as his final words in Conrad’s novella “Heart of Darkness.” Marlowe describes how he utters the final words: “Anything approaching the change that came over his features I have never seen before, and hope never to see again.
What is Marlow’s role in heart of darkness?
Marlow. The protagonist of Heart of Darkness. Marlow is philosophical, independent-minded, and generally skeptical of those around him. Although Marlow shares many of his fellow Europeans’ prejudices, he has seen enough of the world and has encountered enough debased white men to make him skeptical of imperialism.
What does Kurtz mean by the horror the horror?
And now for those famous final words: “The horror! The horror!” (3.43). Marlow interprets this for us, saying that these words are the moment Kurtz realizes exactly how depraved human nature is—that his inability to exert even a shred of self-control is the same darkness in every human heart.
Is Kurtz good or bad?
Kurtz, like Marlow, can be situated within a larger tradition. Kurtz resembles the archetypal “evil genius”: the highly gifted but ultimately degenerate individual whose fall is the stuff of legend.
Who is the main character of Heart of Darkness?
Kurtz
Why do the natives like Kurtz?
According to the harlequin, the natives worship Kurtz as the false god he puts himself out to be. The idea he established emphasizing that the deity of the Africans are the European white men has clouded the minds of the natives causing them to believe that Kurtz is basically their savior.
Why did Marlow lie about Kurtz last words?
Marlow lies to Kurtz’s Intended to spare her the painful reality of her fiancé’s descent into madness and evil. Marlow lies that the last word Kurtz uttered was his fiancée’s name because “it would have been too dark” to tell her that Kurtz last spoke of pure and desolate horror.
How does Marlow feel about the natives?
Throughout Marlow’s trip in the Congo River, he sees the horror of Natives being abused by Company agents. Marlow sympathizes with them, but sympathy is just that, a feeling that makes someone feel awful without having the urge to help alleviate the suffering of others.
Why did Kurtz go crazy?
Marlow suggests that the loneliness and unfamiliarity of the African environment induces Kurtz’s madness, and that his mind weakens the deeper he travels into the “heart of darkness.” As Marlow describes it: “Being alone in the wilderness…
Did Kurtz wanna die?
Indoctrinated into the methods of the U.S. armed forces, Kurtz did everything right until he got in trouble for killing some Vietnamese intelligence agents. Kurtz wants to die but must first impart his knowledge to Willard so that the assassin will be able to denounce the war after he completes his mission.
Why did Kurtz kill chef?
Willard succeeded in his mission only because Kurtz, himself broken mentally by the savage war he had waged, wanted Willard to kill him and release him from his own suffering. Kurtz also murdered Jay “Chef” Hicks by severing his head.
What happens to Marlow after Kurtz death?
Eventually, the Manager’s servant boy peeked into the mess-room and announced, in a contemptuous voice, “Mistah Kurtz — he dead.” Kurtz was buried in the jungle the next day. Stricken by Kurtz’s death, Marlow almost considered suicide, and the remainder of his journey back to Europe is omitted from his narrative.
What happens in Part 3 of Heart of Darkness?
Summary: Part 3. The Russian trader begs Marlow to take Kurtz away quickly. As he listens to the trader, Marlow idly looks through his binoculars and sees that what he had originally taken for ornamental balls on the tops of fence posts in the station compound are actually severed heads turned to face the station house …
Why do the natives attack heart of darkness?
The natives took the wood (to power the steamboat) and Marlow slipped the book in his pocket. The Harlequin then explained that the natives attacked Marlow’s steamboat because they did not want anyone to take Kurtz away from them. Part 2 of Heart of Darkness offers the reader some of Conrad’s most dense passages.
What happens in part 2 of Heart of Darkness?
After three months of work, Marlow finishes repairing the ship. He immediately sets off upriver with the General Manager, a few pilgrims, and thirty cannibals as crew. Marlow prefers the cannibals, who don’t actually eat each other and of whom he says, “They were men I could work with.”
Why do the cannibals not eat Marlow?
They are cannibals, so they could easily overpower the five pilgrims and eat them, but they do not out of respect and a sense of humanization that doesn’t occur to Marlow until that moment.
How are the natives described in Heart of Darkness?
The native population in Heart of Darkness are represented as savages who are criminals and enemies. The natives described as cannibals are poorly treated and only fed hippopotamus meat, refused food by the Europeans. The Natives are also demonstrated as savages due to their distinct lack of technology.
What do the cannibals eat in Heart of Darkness?
Marlow realizes that the cannibals must be terribly hungry, as they have not been allowed to go ashore to trade for supplies, and their only food, a supply of rotting hippo meat, was long since thrown overboard by the pilgrims.
What does cannibalism mean?
1 : the usually ritualistic eating of human flesh by a human being. 2 : the eating of the flesh of an animal by another animal of the same kind.
Who says Mr Kurtz dead?
By T.S. Mistah Kurtz—he dead. The first epigraph is a quote from a servant in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. The servant reveals to the character Marlow that another character named Kurtz has just died.
How are the cannibals paid in Heart of Darkness?
They were each paid three pieces of brass wire every week, the idea being that they would go ashore and trade that for food in the villages we passed. There were no villages, or the villagers were hostile, or the manager didn’t want to stop for whatever reason.