Heart of Darkness: Entry 4

As we begin reading Part II of Heart of Darkness, the story proceeds with Marlow's steamboat heading along the river, as they supposedly approach the mysterious and enigmatic Mr. Kurtz.  They come upon a hut containing firewood that is next to a note claiming it is for Marlow's crew.  As they sail on, becoming more and more worried each minute that their boat will break down, they hear a desperate scream followed by the incomprehensible mumblings of unseen savages coming from the woods.  The whites onboard, being quite frightened by the outburst, are told by the leader of the cannibalistic savages on board that they wish to eat whoever screamed.  After not eating anything substantial in days except for rotting hippo meat, the cannibals were craving humans.  There has been no time for anchoring the ship to stock up on supplies.

As they continue onwards, getting closer and closer to Kurtz's station, their visibility becomes severely inhibited by a dense fog.  Suddenly they are swarmed by tribes of ambushing natives, arrows flying.  Marlow runs to hide in the pilot-house.  Marlow's crew fights back with rifles, and his helmsman (an African) is speared as his feet as he steers the ship.  Repulsed, Marlow hands the steering wheel over to his crewmen as he changes out his blood-stained socks and shoes.  At this point he is worried that Kurtz has been killed too. 

As Marlow tells this narrative, one of his listeners interrupts to note Marlow's "absurd" behavior. Knowing that this particular man was a rich man living a comfortable life, Marlow tells him that he is too ignorant of this lower end of life.  But he admits that while his actions may have been odd, they were certainly justified by his chief aim of finding Mr. Kurtz.

Mr. Kurtz's supposed uniqueness and superiority are summed up in the following key quote from Part II:

"The point was in his [Kurtz] being a gifted creature, and that of all his gifts the one that stood out preeminently, that carried with it a sense of real presence, was his ability to talk, his words--the gift of expression, the bewildering, the illuminating, the most exalted and the most contemptible, the pulsating stream of light, or the deceitful flow from the heart of an impenetrable darkness." (Conrad 89)

Perhaps this quote suggests that Kurtz is a very polar but acute man in his speech, being able to "illuminate and bewilder." Maybe he possesses the ability to disguise his truly dark intentions under a veil of light. Could this be a reference to the nature of imperialism? Or is Kurtz the embodiment of the ends and purposes of imperialism and conquest? We will have to wait until he is found by Marlow.

Political cartoon of British Imperialism: "The Ass in Lion's Skin"