An Analysis of Kurtz in the Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness tells the boloney of a bit named Marlow and his quest to harness the almost mythical regard of Kurtz. Kurtz is a station chief working for a Dutch job company at the very end of the Congo river. Kurtz, on with the otherwise station chiefs who be working at various stations along the Congo river, are charged to harvest the plentiful natural resources of the handsome African continent, primarily ivory. Marlow, who is an experienced sailor and river sauceboat pilot, is charged by the company that employs Kurtz to lead an expedition into the heart of the African Congo to find Kurtz and figure out why he has stopped shipping ivory.Marlow at long last finds his cosmos, sole(prenominal) to discoer that Kurtz has slipped into madness. Kurtz dies on the trip back out of Africa, only to utter his last words, The horror The horror . Kurtz has also scribbled all over his report which he was to turn in to his superiors on the situation and race of the African conti nent. The scribbling read EXTERMINATE ALL THE BRUTES. These two phrases hold of the essence(predicate) meaning in Heart of Darkness, as it describes how Kurtz really felt at the end of his excursion. Kurtz was described several times to Marlow before and during the trip as a different type of man.This colonial period was famous for the cunning of the European Empires, who in their double edged mission of spreading the refinement of the white man while harvesting resources of the foreign lands of the world, horribly failed on the former and were astonishingly successful at the latter. Kurtz was supposed to be a different kind of man. He was described to Marlow as being a current humanitarian, a man who would not only turn a profit for the company but at the same time turn around and civilize the natives of Africa.Marlow was immensely impressed with Kurtz and was eager to finally see the man for himself. What Marlow found couldnt have been further from the truth. When Marlow fin ally sees Kurtz and his compound for the first time, hes shocked to find that the man is almost held in reverence by the villagers. He has also interpreted an apparent mate from the villagers. Marlow soon discovers that Kurtz used his arrival on the boat and his possession of firearms as a means to awe the villagers into accepting him as their demi god.Marlow eventually finds Kurtz, who is by now extremely sick both physically and mentally, crawling along a jungle path at iniquity towards a village celebration. Marlow cuts him off and decides that if Kurtz wont go with him of his sustain free will, he will kill him right then and there. Kurtz relents and allows Marlow to pick out him back to civilization. The next morning Marlow loads Kurtz onto the boat and they begin their journey back to Europe. It is during this trip on the river out of Africa that Kurtz, who is slowly dying, has a upshot of clarity.His last words are The horror The horror . These words are symbolic of wha t Kurtz felt at realizing that he had become even more(prenominal) savage than the so called savages. Kurtz entrusts his papers that he was writing to Marlow. The papers were intend originally to be a humanitarian paper on the true Kurtz had done for the villagers. Scribbled across the papers now, were the words EXTERMINATE ALL BRUTES . These words are an irony for the mission that Kurtz intended to fulfill. His humanitarian mission had degenerated into a mission of violence and exploitation.He no longer intended to attention the people of Africa, he intended to kill them and take as oft from them as they could. Kurtz in the end revealed in his final words what becomes of a man who willingly walked into a new land thinking he could be a savior to a people he fantasy beneath him. In reality, he ended up turning into the true definition of a savage. He became a person who killed with no mercy in order to take what he wanted. In his moment of clarity, he realized the horror of the what he had become. His mission of exterminating the brutes had been successful until his sad, nonsocial death.