Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Mrs. Smith
British Literature
12/7/09
being sent to meet Kurtz, a man with a reputation for greatness. He is the idealistic imperialistic
man with impressive abilities in the ivory trade and control of the natives in Africa. Marlow
encounters widespread cruelty in the Company’s ways which extends especially to Kurtz’s post.
Along his journey up the Congo, Marlow slowly learns of Kurtz’s misgivings, according to the
other men at the stations. The reader learns about more of Kurtz’s even bigger misgivings when
presumably by someone who wanted to prevent him from reaching Kurtz) his interest in Kurtz
grows as he wonders what this eminent man is all about. The manager and the brickmaker fear
Kurtz as a threat to their position, and later in the story, Marlow overhears the manager and his
nephew talking about Kurtz. For Marlow, he “seemed to see Kurtz for the first time” (p. 57)
through the manager and his nephew’s words. They disapprove of Kurtz, mostly because the
manager is jealous of his position and influence, but could there be other, moralistic reasons that
they may disapprove of Kurtz, or are they just as greedy as we will find out Kurtz is?
Kurtz treats the natives horribly. They may respect him because he is the only
one that can speak in their tongue but he is also the one that set rebels’ heads on sticks to set the
example to the rest of the natives: follow the rules of imperialism or there will be consequences.
Kurtz does not even treat his fiancé right. He has a native mistress on the island who his fiancé
does not know about. By the end of the story, the reader’s perspective on Kurtz is mixed; should
On one hand, his intentions did not begin with greed, but on the other hand,
his actions were corrupt and more savage than he thought the natives to be. He went into the
business to enlighten and change a group of people he thought to be savage, but in the end he got
caught up in the greed of the ivory business and the hunger for power and control over the
natives.