Heart Of Darkness Analysis

Heart of Darkness is essentially about what the name is. It can be taken in two different ways, that the heart of darkness is the heart of Africa, deep into the depths of the congo on a steamboat. But it can also be looked at in a more figurative way, about the journey to the heart of darkness that I believe is in every human being.

A major question that Heart Of Darkness brings up is the idea that civilization keeps us together, and if it is removed our civilized mind goes with it. Marlow is used to represent this mind, and how fragile it is. How we can fall into our own primitive instincts since essentially we are all animals and without the rules of government and society what would we know?

Kurtz represents the evil inside of everyone, and the potential for it to come out and really take over. Marlow slowly leaves civilization which represents reason and goodness, and he slowly reaches Kurtz which signifies his descent to evil, how he becomes closer and closer to it.

Kurtz is clearly not a normal human being because in almost every instance he is not characterized as a physical thing. He is always a shadow, moving in and out of light. Never fully seen. A phantom. This is used to show that Kurtz can really be deciphered in either way, he can be taken literally, as an ivory hunter gone mad with a lust for blood. Or you truly could read the book with a different perspective. Not even looking at Kurtz as he really exists. You could say that he really only lives inside Marlow and that this journey is into the heart of Marlow, maybe even that Marlow is Kurtz. The possibilities are endless and when Marlow is almost completely transformed into the savage beast of Kurtz, he refuses to cross the line. Kurtz dies on the trip back home, for they are returning to civilization where savagery is not nurtured like it was in the depths of the congo.