Heart of darkness analysis, Appunti di Letteratura Inglese

Scarica Heart of darkness analysis e più Appunti in PDF di Letteratura Inglese solo su Docsity! We really can't say it better than Joseph Conrad himself. Heart of Darknessis: A wild story of a journalist who becomes manager of a station in the (African) interior and makes himself worshipped by a tribe of savages. Thus described, the subject seems comic, but it isn't. (source) No—not comic at all. Set in the African Interior and based on Conrad's own experiences as the captain of a Belgian steamer, Heart of Darkness isn't much like the rousing adventure story that it could be. It's less Indiana Jones and the Ivory Traders than, well, psychological horror. And in February of 1899, readers of Blackwood's Magazine—a high-falutin' literary rag, kind of like The New Yorker—would have been treated to the first of its three parts. Conrad is one of the most important English writers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. And get this: he wasn't even English. Conrad was Polish, and he didn't actually learn English until he was in his twenties—and after he'd already learned French. (Think about that next time you complain about having to write an essay.) His works explore the seedy underbelly of imperialism, the move in the nineteenth century for European countries to stake out claim to various far-flung parts of the world. Heart of Darkness is set right after the Scramble for Africa, the period of the late nineteenth century when imperial powers sliced up and doled out Africa like some particularly delicious—and ivory-rich—birthday cake.None of the Western countries really come off looking good in this whole debacle, but Belgium, unfortunately, looks particularly bad. They were after the valuable ivory hidden away in the African Interior, and they weren't afraid to brutalize and oppress the Africans in order to get it. Heart of Darkness follows the disturbing journey of English ivory-trading agent Marlow, who, working for a Belgian company, travels into the jungles of Africa in search of a mysterious man named Kurtz who appears to have (1) become a god-like figure, and (2) gone totally mad. But Heart of Darkness is much more than a story about a trip up the river. It's a searching exploration of difference: of good and evil, black and white, sanity and insanity. In the end, what we're left with is … nothing. Really. Most contemporary critics agree that the novel is about the essential emptiness at the core of humanity—and language. That's why T. S. Eliot used a quotation from the novel as an epigraph to his poem "The Hollow Men," a super important and famous literary exploration of modern life. One last thing: in 1975, Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe spoke out against the novel. He accused it of making its point by dehumanizing Africans and reducing them to extensions of the hostile and primal jungle environment. Conrad's language was beautiful and seductive, he said—but it was wrong. Hmmm. Beautiful, seductive, and wrong. To us, that sounds a lot like how Marlow would describe Kurtz—and it's a good example of how head-twistingly complex this novel is. Get comfy. This is going to take a while. Have you ever rooted for the bad guy on a TV show, picked on someone smaller than you, or secretly wished that the annoying kid behind you in Calculus would get destroyed in dodgeball? Then you, dear Shmooper, have encountered your own heart of darkness. Okay, to be fair, it's somewhat less dark than the one Conrad shows us, probably more a light shade of gray than an inky blackness. But the point is this: people can be scary. No matter how much we like to think that we're on the side of good, the truth is that most of us are, in the right circumstances, probably capable of murder, brutality, torture, and mass exterminations. Just think of the Holocaust. So before you start pointing fingers, take a look at your hand. See those three fingers pointing back at yourself? According to Heart of Darkness, we're all just a shrunken head away from savagery. Possible (okay, probable) racism aside, that's a truth worth caring about. SUMMARY Heart of Darkness follows one man's nightmarish journey into the interior of Africa—but don't worry. No one's going to get eaten by a lion. It all takes place in the past, because what we have here is a frame story. Aboard a British ship called the Nellie, three men listen to a dude named Marlow recount his journey into Africa as an agent for the Company, a Belgian ivory trading firm. (Mercifully, he doesn't force them to look through 1000 of his trip photos on Facebook.) Along the way, he witnesses brutality and hate between colonizers and the native African people, becomes entangled in a power struggle within the Company, and finally learns the truth about the mysterious Kurtz, a mad agent who has become both a god and a prisoner of the "native Africans." It's more exciting than it sounds, we promise. After "rescuing" Kurtz from the native African people, Marlow watches in horror as Kurtz succumbs to madness, disease, and finally death. In the end, Marlow decides to support Kurtz rather than his company, which is possibly morally dubious and definitely a bad career move. The novel closes with Marlow's guilt- ridden visit to Kurtz's fiancée to return the man's personal letters, and, on that ambiguous note, we end. CHAPTER 1 During a flood on the River Thames in merry Old England, the British ship Nellie anchors near London and waits for the flood to recede. On board are four men: the anonymous narrator, a lawyer, an accountant, the Director of Companies and Marlow (the only character named)  The guy is creepy (a common theme around these parts), and he's also a fairly mediocre manager with no discernable talents.  Well, he has one talent: irritating Marlow with a constant stream of meaningless babble and a vacant smile.  He also has some information: Kurtz is sick, and he has designs on becoming a manager within the Company. Cue the conspiracy theory plotline.  One night, a shed burns down. In the commotion, Marlow overhears some unknown agent talking about Kurtz. We also hear (out of context) the words "take advantage of this unfortunate accident."  Hmmmmm.  The speaker turns out to be a brickmaker of a shady nature—one called the "manager's spy"—who does not actually make any bricks.  Maybe that's why he's shady.  This brickmaker pumps a clueless Marlow for information, and Marlow plays along simply to see what he wants.  Eventually he learns that the brickmaker wants to get in with Marlow's aunt's connections, who recommended Marlow for the job (and apparently did the same for Kurtz).  Unfortunately for the brickmaker, the only way to know this would be from reading some confidential mail.  Looks like the brickmaker's been dipping into Company secrets.  After he's recovered from Marlow's accusations, the brickmaker comes back and sucks up to Marlow, explaining everything.  See, he wants to be assistant manager, but Kurtz is messing everything up. He wants Marlow and his connections to help him out.  Marlow let the brickmaker think that he actually has influence in Europe just to get more information about Kurtz. Slick.  While the brickmaker chatters on, Marlow stops listening and becomes fascinated by the eerily silent forest before him. He feels small against its vastness.  Marlow makes a HUGE deal out of telling his audience/us that he hates lies. Really, really hates lies. (You are definitely going to want to remember that.)  At this point, Marlow breaks the narrative flow to tell his listeners (the men aboard the Nellie) that everything seemed really unreal and dreamlike at the time.  The listeners are lucky because they can "see" more of the story than he could when he was experiencing it all. They can see him (Marlow), which was more than Marlow could see. Confusing? Yes, and also heavily ironic, since it has now fallen dark aboard the Nellie and the listeners cannot actually see Marlow, each other, or themselves. Marlow even questions whether they're awake.  Also, we're getting the feeling that all this talk about seeing/ not seeing is, you know, meaningful in some way.  Resume historical present inside Marlow's story.  Marlow spaces out while the brickmaker is talking to him, thinking about how he needs to find some rivets to repair the steamboat and get on his way.  When Marlow finally tells this to the brickmaker, the guy changes the topic to something about a troublesome hippo that terrorizes the men at night (!).  After this, Marlow runs into the foreman sitting on the deck. They dance madly because they think rivets are coming in three weeks.  Um, okay.  But it turns out, no rivets are coming after all.  Instead of rivets, a renegade raiding group called the Eldorado Exploring Expedition arrives.  They're led by the manager's uncle, who conspires with his nephew.  Marlow loathes them both, and, without knowing anything about the guy, he decides that Kurtz is better than both of them because at least he has morals.  Right? CHAPTER 2 One lazy day, Marlow is napping out on deck when he hears the manager and his uncle talking about something faintly interesting.  Make that extremely interesting: Kurtz.  The manager and his uncle are unhappy with Kurtz, because he's too influential with Company heads and they think he's stealing ivory.  They oh-so-nicely hope the climate will kill him.  Apparently, Kurtz once came down the river to send the ivory to the Company but then decided to turn back. No one knows why.  Everyone thinks this is odd—everyone, that is, except Marlow. Marlow has developed something of an obsession with this guy he's never met and thinks it's admirable.  The men keep jabbering until the uncle tells the manager not to worry, but instead to trust "this," which we assume involves a gesture to the surroundings, since "this" means the scary African wilderness.  Marlow is so scared by "this" that he jumps out of his hiding place, which scares the living bezonkers out of manager and uncle. To cover up their screams of fright, they pretend to ignore him and go back up to the station.  Soon afterward, the Eldorado Exploring Expedition leaves. Marlow learns later that all their donkeys died, which implies that the men died too.  It also means they were killed by [gesture to surroundings] "this."  After two months of traveling upriver, they reach Kurtz's station. The trip is seriously scary. So much so that Marlow describes it as traveling back to the beginning of time, before the dawn of mankind: huge forests, aggressive animals, an unnerving stillness, etc. etc.  One of the listeners interrupts Marlow's narrative.  This proves that they haven't all fallen asleep, in case you were still wondering about that—in fact, they're all super into the story.  Back to the tale: there are cannibals on board!  Yeah, people who eat one another. Except they don't eat one another now, out of respect for their employers. Instead they eat rotten hippo meat.  (We recommend fava beans and a nice chianti.)  By now, the obsession has reached stalker-level. Marlow's journey to visit the interior is now a trip to visit Kurtz.  The journey becomes so trippy that Marlow feels as if he's in a dream. Again. He's cut off from all understanding of the world around him and feels like he has no memories.  Maybe lay off the drugs? Just a thought.  In fact, he finds himself identifying with the native Africans hiding out in the bush. He recognizes a "remote kinship." The only reason he doesn't go ashore "for a howl and a dance" is because he's a busy man.  Get out your highlighters, Shmoop: this is important.  Marlow tells us all about the cannibal fireman on board.  Oh—he's the kind of fireman who starts fires (in the boiler), not the kind who puts them out.  The fireman has been told that if the water in the boiler ever disappears, the evil spirit inside will take revenge.  Well, it's probably more effective motivation than a paycheck.  Fifty miles before arriving at the Inner Station, they run across a pile of firewood and a warning message: "Approach cautiously," which is typical British restraint for "RUN AWAY NOW."  But Marlow and Co. steam onward.  In his expeditions, Kurtz raids various villages for ivory. He even gets the native Africans—who adore him—to help out with the raids.  He's so obsessive about ivory that he even threatened to shoot the harlequin one day unless he handed over his own personal supply of ivory.  The harlequin promptly gave it up.  We discover that the harlequin nursed Kurtz through two bouts of sickness and is rather proud of himself for doing so.  At this point, Marlow makes a gruesome discovery. The "knobs" on the ends of the stakes he noticed from a distance are not ornamental. They're skulls of dead Africans.  To Marlow, these skulls show that Kurtz "lacked restraint," a fault that Marlow seems to despise. In fact, he despises it so much that he'll make reference to this "lack of restraint" at least two more times before the end of the book. So keep an eye out.  Marlow begins to reflect that Kurtz, whose reputation is larger than life, has violent, ruthless, "savage" qualities—and a "hollow core"—that even Kurtz himself may not realize consciously until the end of his life.  In this light, Kurtz is an obsessed, lustful, maniacal imperialist who didn't mind perpetrating horrific cruelties for ivory and other treasures he found in the African land.  Hmm. We're feeling a little critique of colonialism coming through here.  The harlequin tries to justify Kurtz's actions by saying those skulls "were the heads of rebels."  Marlow's eyes roll involuntarily at the word "rebel."  Suddenly, a party of native Africans arrives carrying a man on a stretcher.  It's Kurtz!  And he's not looking too good. In fact, he's grotesquely thin and ghostly, like Death personified. Marlow calls him "that atrocious phantom." The only substantial thing about him is his voice. That, and the fact that's he's tall (even though "Kurtz" means "short" in German.)  Kurtz knows who Marlow is and is stoked to have some company.  But first, the manager shows up, and Marlow leaves the two alone to chat.  In the meantime, a group of native Africans has gathered outside. For the first time, we see a woman.  Now, it could be that Marlow hasn't seen a woman in several months, but he describes her as wild and gorgeous, a warrior woman, with brass trappings to boot.  Too bad she's super sad and never speaks—just gestures at the sky and then disappears into the wood.  Spooky. Plus, the harlequin wants to shoot her for maybe being Kurtz's lover, since that's a … crime?  The manager and Kurtz argue. The manager loses, obviously.  After leaving Kurtz, he tells Marlow that Kurtz's method of collecting ivory is "unsound" and he wants to remove Kurtz from the interior.  Marlow kisses his career goodbye by taking Kurtz's side, and at this point things get a little too hot for the harlequin, who decides to peace out.  Before he does, he reveals that Kurtz ordered the earlier attack on Marlow's steamer. Which, we think, is the third explanation we've heard for the poison arrows, so we really don't trust this guy now.  Despite the mistrust, Marlow very helpfully provides him with a few spare items (shoes, cartridges, etc.) before the harlequin leaves.  Marlow again remarks on the remarkability of the man. (Pun intended.)  Hours later, Marlow wakes up around midnight and goes to check on Kurtz who, in a dramatic and suspenseful moment, is not there.  Oops.  Instead of raising the alarm, Marlow goes after Kurtz himself. After all, the guy is sick and probably crawling through the jungle, so he can't have gone that far.  And, in fact, he does find Kurtz. Hooray!  Kurtz tells Marlow to hide himself. He's very bitter about his fight with the manager, since his dreams of greatness have now been smashed to pieces.  Marlow ignores Kurtz and lets himself be drawn in by the hypnotic spell of night. He watches some native Africans dancing and confuses the drums with his own heartbeat.  Finally, after threatening to kill Kurtz if he calls out to the Africans, Marlow cuddles the man in his arms like a baby and brings him back out of the jungle.  The next day, they all leave aboard the steamer. A group of Africans gathers on the shore.  Suddenly the warrior woman breaks through and shouts at the departing steamer, riling up everyone.  Marlow prevents disaster by blowing the steam-whistle and scaring everyone away.  Well, everyone except the woman, who is apparently unperturbed by the whistle.  Kurtz seems to understand what is going on, but he's keeping quiet— maybe since he's on the edge of death and is having all these mood swings and incomprehensible ravings.  Meanwhile, the Westerners have turned against Marlow because he's sided with Kurtz. This seems like it's going downhill fast.  The steamboat breaks down and they have to lay up for a few days to fix it.  Kurtz loses his sight, saying that he lies in the dark when he's actually in sunlight. (Remember what we said about "seeing" being important? Yeah.)  In his dying moments, Marlow sees Kurtz's face change into a mask of despair. His very last words are, "The horror! The horror!"  These are super famous last words, by the way.  When news hits that Kurtz has died, everyone rushes to see the body. Marlow, on the other hand, seems to have no desire to stop eating dinner.  Weirdly, this almost causes his men to mutiny against him. But they don't.  The next day, the men bury Kurtz.  After this whole bizarre episode, it's no wonder that Marlow gets sick. Eventually, he makes it back to England. Whew.  Back in England, Marlow realizes that he can't identify with normal folk anymore, since they're all petty and irritating.  Marlow tries to figure out what to do with Kurtz's papers, which the late Kurtz entrusted to him. The Company is jonesing to see those papers, thinking that they may say something along the lines of "all of the ivory on the entire world is buried at X" followed by a map with a large red X. Even when the Company threatens legal action, Marlow refuses to give them the papers, saying they're personal.  A man visits Marlow, claiming to be Kurtz's cousin. He leaves with some worthless private letters.  We're suspicious.  Marlow decides to return the rest of the papers to Kurtz's "Intended," which is nineteenth-century British for "fiancée."  When we meet her, we learn that she's a beautiful woman with a distinctive golden hair. Despite the fact that she's wearing all black, Marlow associates her with light as opposed to Kurtz's darkness.  She looooooves Kurtz, but as she talks it becomes increasingly apparent that she has no idea who Kurtz really was. wait. Except the western horizon. We're thinking that maybe the West (as in Europe) isn't quite as enlightened as it thinks it is. Check out how the sunlight grows more sinister as it falls towards the western horizon, turning from a friendly white to a "dull red"—you know, like fire. And in case you think that this is just a description and not metaphorical or symbolic, Conrad tells us that they're watching the Thames in the "august light of abiding memories," i.e. that they're looking at it though the lens of all their past experiences. Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, they all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire. What greatness had not floated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth! (1.6) The European pioneers head into the darkness of unknown territory bearing little flares of light like torches or glittering swords that represent their vigor and their enlightenment. This is super conventional imagery, which makes us wonder if we're really supposed to take it seriously. Somehow, we don't think Conrad would be quite so obvious. Chapter 1 Summary Good vs. Evil Read it in the Book: Chapter 1 Quote #5 The sun set; the dusk fell on the stream, and lights began to appear along the shore. The Chapman lighthouse, a three-legged thing erect on a mudflat, shone strongly. Lights of ships moved in the fairway—a great stir of lights going up and going down. And farther west on the upper reaches the place of the monstrous town was still marked ominously on the sky, a brooding gloom in sunshine, a lurid glare under the stars. (1.7) Conrad isn't giving us some simple light = good/ dark = bad equation. Check out how even the light isn't very cheerful: the sunshine is "brooding" and the town glares "luridly" under the stars. Chapter 1 Summary Good vs. Evil Read it in the Book: Chapter 1 Quote #6 "And this also," said Marlow suddenly, "has been one of the dark places of the earth." (1.8) Out of the blue, Marlow declares that London—pretty much the capital of the world in the late nineteenth century—used to be as dark as the interior of Africa. Well, gee, who asked you? Chapter 1 Summary 2. MAN AND THE NATURAL WORLD Move over, Mother Nature: there's a new wilderness in town. In Heart of Darkness, the natural world isn't a place of comfort or pleasure or even mild neutrality: it's dark, frightening, and it will basically eat your face off if you so much as look at it cross-eyed. But is civilization really that much better? Sure, you might get to sleep in a bed—but human nature is the same whether it's shouting "brava" after an operatic aria or chanting along with war drums. Questions About Man and the Natural World  What does civilization seem to represent at the beginning of the novel? What does nature represent? Does this distinction hold true as the novel progresses?  How does the concept of civilization become problematic as the novel progresses? How are the Company's attempts to 'civilize' the Africans hypocritical?  If nature is madness-inducing, what does this say about human nature, especially the native Africans?  How do different aspects of nature, especially the river and the jungle, become characters in their own right? What is nature's attitude towards man? Chew on This Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate. In Heart of Darkness, natural forces have a will of their own: they're hostile to the white "pilgrims," but accepting toward the black "savages." Conrad suggests that there's no real difference between the natural world and human nature.  RACE Conrad doesn't exactly want to buy the world a Coke, but he does seem to have some unconventional ideas about race—at least, unconventional for the late nineteenth century. In Heart of Darkness, he seems to be suggesting that there really isn't so much difference between black and white—except that this vision of racial harmony becomes more complicated when you consider that he seems to be suggesting that black people are just less evolved versions of white people. Maybe. We're like 50% sure on that one. As with most issues in Heart of Darkness, the differences between black and white are so confusing as to be almost meaningless. And, in fact, maybe that's just Conrad's point. Questions About Race  How are the differences between white and black people depicted inHeart of Darkness? What kinds of activities does each group participate in?  What does imagery of light and dark seem to have to do with race inHeart of Darkness? What does this say morally about each group of people?  What kinds of white European expectations does Marlow bring into his journey up the Congo? How are they dispelled? Look specifically at the examples of the accountant, manager, brickmaker, and Kurtz. What is Marlow's attitude towards the native Africans?  How is Kurtz's attitude towards the black Africans ambiguous? How might he be viewed as the ultimate symbol of imperialism and black subjugation? Alternatively, how might he be read as a symbol of liberation and freedom? Chew on This Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate. Despite white Europe’s good intentions towards the Africans and their desire to "civilize" the black man, imperialism proves to be a brutal and callous victimization of the native Africans for the sole purpose of maximizing profits. Despite Kurtz’s brutality, he treats the Africans more civilly and more as equals than the majority of the other white European characters (like the accountant, the manager, and even Marlow). This is why Marlow sees him as the lesser of two evils.  IDENTITY By the end of his journey into the Congo, Marlow is so mixed up that he might as well be singing, "I Am the Walrus." Although he starts off with a pretty clear sense of who he is (white, successful, explorer), the jungle and the wilderness pretty quickly get him all mixed up. Is black white? Is civilization actually wild? Is Kurtz really that different from Marlow? And who is the manager, anyway? And are we really all just hollow inside? Heart of Darkness isn't about to say. Questions About Identity How is Africa a place of emptiness from the white European perspective? How are even places of civilization—cities and trading stations—empty in terms of European amenities and values? What characters lack essential human characteristics? How do they show their fundamental emptiness? And are these characteristics actually essentially human? How are the white pilgrims deprived of their senses and reason as they descend deeper and deeper into the  Why does Marlow insist at first that he's not interested in Kurtz? Is he telling the truth at the time? Does he only get interested later?  How does Marlow's curiosity compromise his integrity and bring about dire consequences? Or is his curiosity actually harmless?  How does Marlow explore Kurtz? Is the human mind a legitimate path for exploration? How does this make his sense of right and wrong more flexible? Chew on This Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate. Marlow's journey up the Congo River parallels his exploration of the human psyche: as he plunges deeper into the African interior, he goes deeper into the nature of good and evil. In Heart of Darkness, Conrad suggests that exploration is a negative force.  MADNESS There's method in this madness: Kurtz has gone from noble conqueror to deranged slaver because his power and greed have been totally unchecked. Ergo, if you want to stay sane, don't swoop into an African village and start passing yourself off as a god. Point taken. But that's where things start to get hazy. Is madness is just another name for imperialism—the idea that white men can swoop into Africa and claim it for themselves? Or is madness what happens when civilization tries to conquer the wilderness? Questions About Madness  How does Conrad define madness? How is Kurtz the ultimate embodiment of madness?  What symptoms accompany the onset of madness in Heart of Darkness? What human faculties begin to break down? Does Marlow become a little crazy himself?  Is madness caused by the trip up the Congo River and into the interior? Or is it something that is born into man, regardless of his environment? In other words, is madness caused by inherent nature or environment and experience?  Can the harlequin be seen as a bridge between madness and sanity? How do his words make sense yet seem like folly to Marlow? How does Marlow relate to the harlequin? What does this say about Marlow's state of sanity? Chew on This Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate. Isolation and life in the wilderness cause Kurtz's madness; in other words, there is something inherently madness-inducing about the African interior. One of Conrad's main messages is that madness is not caused specifically by living in the wilderness, but that the seeds of madness—ambition, obsession, and greed—are always present.  LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION For someone who wrote a lot of big words, Conrad seems to have some serious doubts about the power of language. In Heart of Darkness, words are always trying and failing to live up to their big, impressive goal: ensuring that two people can understand each other. For Kurtz, language is a way to justify white man's superiority over the Africans. For Marlow, language represents a way out of madness by establishing a connection with other humans. For the Africans— well, who knows? To Marlow, their words aren't even language. We might say the same about you, Mr. Conrad. Questions About Language and Communication  What is significant about the manager's and the brickmaker's characteristic blabbering? What does it say about their characters?  How does Marlow receive information about Kurtz? Are these sources reliable? What expectations does Marlow form about Kurtz based on this hearsay?  What is Kurtz's relationship to language? How does his troubled psyche manifest itself in his words? What is Marlow's opinion of all this and how does it affect his own relationship to language? Does he see it as a cure for madness?  What is Marlow's style of narration? Does the fact that he is telling the story compromise our belief in its validity? Is he a reliable narrator? What might be his goal in relating the story to his fellow passengers? Chew on This Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate. Linguistic expression—through either speech or text—represents one way out of madness, but they also represent a way into madness. Kurtz's handle on language helps make him go crazy. In Heart of Darkness, problems with words give us a clue to character defects.  FEAR The white pilgrims go into the interior in constant fear of their surroundings. Their trepidation is so strong that they develop a paranoia of the wilderness – its eerie silences and sudden blinding fogs, its impenetrable darkness and shadowy savages. Being so far removed from any vestige of civilization as they know it only adds to their sense of helplessness. Their fear makes them do foolish things on impulse. Fear also contributes to their eventual madness. It pervades the entire novel and seems to seep into the environment itself so that everything is not only terror-inducing, but morally disturbing as well. Questions About Fear  What exactly do the white men fear about the black native Africans? How is this enhanced by the jungle environment?  What do the men fear about Kurtz? What makes them go after him anyway? Why does Kurtz pose such a big threat to them?  How does Conrad enhance our fear and awe of Kurtz? What physical and mental characteristics does Kurtz display that render this man particularly disturbing to our sense of normality and morality?  What does Kurtz fear? What exactly is "The horror! The horror!" that he dies fighting? Chew on This Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate. Conrad stokes readers’ fear of the interior by narrating the death of Fresleven, imposing Marlow’s discomfort, and rendering nature a hostile force to the white pilgrims. Kurtz strikes readers as particularly frightening because of his eerie combination of human and ghostly features and his strangely logical, yet brutal, flow of thought.  FATE AND FREE WILL Marlow’s journey toward the interior and toward Kurtz seems inevitable, as if Marlow is drawn nearer and nearer to the heart of darkness by his own morbid curiosity and by his childhood drive to explore. Indeed, the two women knitting in Brussels represent the Fates of ancient Greek mythology. With their appearance, Marlow begins to feel as if his journey isill-starred – yet he forges on anyway. The interplay between fate and free will informs the action of the plot, calling into question whether Marlow could have avoided his descent into madness, his corruption, and his subsequent revelations about human nature. Questions About Fate and Free Will  How are the two old knitting women embodiments of Fate? Why does Marlow envision them at the end?  Are all the accidents that keep delaying Marlow’s journey into the interior truly incidental?  How is Kurtz a product of fate? To what extent do his personal choices affect his descent into madness? Could his demise have been prevented?