I just finished Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and I am so fucking confused, can we talk about it? I kept having to go back and reread things multiple times because I feel like I'm missing something. Why was Kurtz such a big deal? He wasn't even in the actual novel that long, why was Marlow so obsessed with him? What was the deal with the random African women that put her had in the sky? What's going on with Kurtz's fiancé why was she even put in the novel? She had no significance whatsoever, why was Marlow even bothering himself with her? Why was Kurtz even involved in the company, what was his purpose? Don't get me wrong, I really like this book but I really don't understand what's going on please help.
>I really like this book but I really don't understand what's going on
>>7989720
I mean, I could appreciate the story telling and I could understand the first two chapters just fine but at chapter three I just lost it. The entire book he's talking about Kurtz and then you meet him and there is nothing defining him in anyway, Marlow doesn't even talk to him very much so why does Marlowe act like they where buddy buddy and that Kurtz was just the best thing since sliced bread?
The purpose for Marlow's journey is more or less that the Company is scared shitless of Kurtz. The reason for this is essential to understanding the entire book.
From the outset, Marlow detests the Europeans he encounters all along the way. He detests and mocks them, especially when it comes to their inefficiency. The trip with the Company is leading him to a complete rejection of Europe and civilized society.
Kurtz is what he moves towards along the river, both literally because that's the target and metaphorically because Marlow is becoming more like Kurtz. Kurtz is the completed rejection of society, to the point that he has joined the savage wilderness and now rules it.
This terrifies the Company, because Kurtz was an ivory supplier who could get shitloads of the stuff. Absurd amounts. Then he just stops giving a fuck and sends them nothing. This is not ok with them at all, so Marlow has to go figure out what the deal is. The ivory is not the point -- the point is that he achieved dominion over the natives, the savages, and no longer wants to be part of them. He sees himself as something completely separate.
When Marlow sees Kurtz he understands what Kurtz has done and how he has reached this point, and has mixed feelings. Here is the end result of the path he's going along -- rejection of society in the form of the Company will turn him into Kurtz. But he sees what Kurtz has, and does not want it. He sees it as base, primal, as below him as the Company at the opposite side of the spectrum. So he takes a fascination with Kurtz, but rejects his life as well.
Kurtz's fiancee and the native woman highlight the extent of how far he fell. He had an entire life in Europe that he has lost all interest in, and now in fact actively hates.
Marlow's conflicted feelings prevent him from revealing this to the fiancee back home. He cannot tell the truth to her, and the world he is from seems as alien as Africa did. Instead he returns to a life of traveling aboard ships, which is where we find him at the beginning of the novel. Here, he follows his own sort of middle ground and finally feels content, which is why the frame story on the Nellie repeatedly uses images enlightenment to describe him.
>>7989794
So Marlow, like the Harlequin, was a following as a disciple of Kurtz in ways but then saw how Kurtz ended up and decided not too? So he becomes indifferent, because though he seems enlightened he also leaves things open to interpretation in my opinion.
So the entire ending with random people talking to Marlow about Kurtz was supposed to represent how Kurtz had a life in the old world, but why does Marlow go and visit all these people?
>>7989794
I agree with almost all of what you've said, but I have qualms about these:
>Marlow is becoming more like Kurtz
>[Marlow] sees what Kurtz has and does not want it.
Marlow sees Kurtz' actions as either the ultimate of European conquest or the less than savory underbelly of European conquest, so Marlow's "not want[ing] it" is less about power and more about his disgust/sadness from the lack of empathy, humanity in Kurtz because as Marlow sees it, Kurtz is a personification of the darker side of the dominion, and this heightens Marlow's conflict about such a low task; however, Marlow's isn't a conflict derived from guilt over the bloodloss of conquest, but rather his conflict comes from a belief that it's far too easy to conquer such weak, subhuman savages.
This is completely unrelated, but you seem sharp enough to receive this with an open mind:Check out the book Laugh your Way Through Grammar. I think it could improve your writing, and make it more concise, clear to readers
>>7989720
>someone actually tries to get a discussion going on a book they've read by bringing up specifics
>poster uncomfortable with the lack of shitpost memes and immediately insults OP
this is /lit/
>>7990382
Not him, but I don't see what you mean. Marlow doesn't seem to think much of the natives, but he define fly doesn't see them as week and easy to colonize but more of the English are just overpowered and immoral.
>>7990382
Yeah those are all solid points. I haven't read back through HoD in about two years so I was just going off memory and left quite a bit out.
Also I think my grammar seemed off and unclear because I typed all this up on my phone. If I get the chance to look back through things and really see what I'm writing, it works out much better.
>>7990248
The Harlequin was a very interesting character. I don't remember many of his details but I think he obsessed over Kurtz because he saw the man as a romanticized force of nature. He insists to Marlow that Kurtz writes beautiful poetry and understands more of the world than either of them. The key difference is that the Harlequin believed Kurtz was almost the pinnacle of humanity, while Marlow believed Kurtz had lost his humanity altogether.
Marlow goes and visits the people because he feels he has to. Talking to the manager is his job, and I suppose he felt Kurtz's fiancee deserved to know the truth, and nobody else was going to tell her.
>>7989727
Read some e-notes
>>7991576
Marlow didn't tell her the truth though, he allowed her in live in illusion of Kurtz' myth. Marlow was incrediably conflicted over his feelings towards him, he was both in awe and horrifed and understood if he was in his position it would be all too easy to lose yourself that way
>>7991576
>while Marlow believed Kurtz had lost his humanity altogether.
Did he really? I feel like Marlow was very conflicted about what to think of Kurtz, and his veiw point was abivilent and left open to interpretation.
>>7991607
By truth I meant simply that Kurtz was dead, I should have clarified. But yes, how Marlow handled the interaction with her was a good portrayal of how he really didn't know how to react to what he had seen at that point.
>>7991613
He was ambivalent about Kurtz for sure. I just think that, upon seeing the results of Kurtz's choices, he turns back because he refuses to follow that same path. Marlow has a kind of morbid curiosity about Kurtz, mixed feelings of being impressed and revolted, very different from the Harlequin's idolization and devotion.
