Degeneration of Kurtz, Colonialism, and Imperialism in...

Degeneration of Kurtz and Colonialism in Heart of Darkness 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 peoples talk, for cleverness and enterprise. Joseph Conrads 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. The fading of the idealist mirage of civilizing work in Africa has to be one of the central†¦show more content†¦Marlow also spoke to Kurtzs journalist colleague, who remembered about Kurtz: Heavens! how that man could talk! He electrified large meetings. He had the faith - dont you see - he had the faith. He could get himself to believe anything - anything (Conrad 71). The other thing Kurtz met in the Congo was silence. The dialogue became a monologue, because the other side of the conversation is only wilderness. Kurtzs whole orientation in the Congo was based on the quest for ever-increasing quantities of ivory. In this lay the weakness of Kurtz, for he wanted something, unlike his Russian companion. Kurtzs intelligence, his ideas, and his plans, were captive to his status as ivory gatherer. Kurtzs rejection of the validity of the unsound method was not the problem. The problem with Kurtz, which Marlow does not realize, is not that Kurtz went native, but that he did not go native enough. In other words, Kurtz did not abandon the ivory-fetish. Kurtzs link with colonialism is therefore his undoing, even in the individual decay he undergoes. Kurtz, more than anyone, was a signal of human potential to Marlow, the universal genius, the extraordinary man found the limits of his potential much more easily in his isolation: Believe me or not, his intelligence was perfectly clear - concentrated, it is true, upon himself with a horrible intensity, yet clear...(Conrad 65). Kurtzs abilities had nothing to work onShow MoreRelated The Metaphors of Conrads Heart of Darkness Essay1417 Words   |  6 PagesThe Metaphors of Heart of Darkness      Ã‚  Ã‚   Within the text of Heart of Darkness, the reader is presented with many metaphors. Those that recur, and are most arresting and notable, are light and dark, nature and Kurtz and Marlow. The repeated use of light and dark imagery represents civilization and primitiveness, and of course the eternal meaning of good and evil. However, the more in depth the reader goes the more complex it becomes. Complex also are the meanings behind the metaphors of natureRead MoreThe Distorted Images in Heart of Darkness4513 Words   |  19 PagesThe distorted images in Heart of Darkness Abstract In Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad exposes the evil of the imperialism and pays sympathy to the oppressed Africans. But affected by imperialist ideology, he serves as a racist and a defender of the imperialism when he attempts to condemn the colonizers. This paper will be analyzing the distorted images in Heart of darkness from the perspective of post-colonialism and Orientalism theory. The present paper is divided into five parts: Part 1 is