Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness

Within the novella Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad there are three major characters: Marlow, the narrator; Kurtz, the person Marlow is sent to find; and the jungles of Africa. The jungle is alive in this story. It is not simply a setting but is alive and interacts with the characters throughout the book. The jungle retains a mystical essence about it throughout the novella. It pushes the minds of “civilized” men to the “awakening of forgotten and brutal instincts;” and protects itself and exacts “vengeance for the fantastic invasion” of the European imperialists who reap the fruits of the land.
The jungle has the overwhelming ability to force the civilized to be uncivilized. The haunting mystique of the jungle often greatly exceeds the capacity to retain control of their person for the weak. All too often people fall victim to the unimaginably strong will of the jungle. They are tormented and twisted until they are swimming in their own pool of destruction and hate. The jungle has the power to change men, strong men and weak alike. However, they are not truly “changed,” rather they are recommitted into the nature of their hearts: to be uncivilized, greedy, and evil. Kurtz is a prime example of the jungle’s strong ability to reinvent the heart of man. He enters into the jungle to deal ivory from the Congo for a short time. But the more time Kurtz spends in the jungle, the more, “it whisper[s] to him things about himself which he [does] not know,” until ultimately “the whisper prove[s] irresistibly fascinating.” At this point Kurtz becomes another fallen member of “civilization” to the nature of man’s heart. The jungle challenges all those who enter it with the freedom to do whatever he wants with no repercussions. Within the deep darkness of the jungle, Kurtz is allowed to rape the land of its resources and kill “whom he jolly well pleased.” In that jungle Kurtz is transformed into the true Kurtz, a man with no limitations or...