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The Character of Marlow in The Heart of Darkness  

 

The Heart of Darkness may just be the title of a book to some people, but I

believe that it goes much deeper than that. I think that this title

describes the books main character, Charlie Marlow. Throughout this story I

saw the many confusing and ever changing sides of Marlow’s character and his

heart of darkness.

 

Charlie Marlow appeared to be a man of great pride and civilization. He

always spoke very proper and was a classic example of a man of his time.

Throughout this novel though, this painted image I have of Marlow begins to

slowly drip away.

 

There were several instances where I was confused about Marlow. The first

one was at the very beginning of the story. Marlow began talking about his

childhood and how he had dreamed of becoming a captain or a skipper on one

of the glorious steamboats. He went on and on about it in such great detail

that you almost began to believe that he was a captain, though he was only

a young boy at the time. His determination and love seemed eternal, and

nothing was going to take his dream away from him. At least that is what we

were lead to believe. Marlow soon grew old and so did his dream. I slowly

saw the determination side of Marlow slipping away into the river along with

his childhood vision of being a captain. I didn’t think that something like

age would stop Marlow from taking on this challenge. After he talked about it so

much you would think only death itself would stop him. Unfortunately, Marlow

gave up and decided to move on with his life. That was the way it was going

to have to be, or so he thought.

 

I saw Marlow as a seemingly comfortable old man now. He didn’t have his

dream job, but he was still well off. One day though Marlow’s fantasy job

basically just fell into his lap. A steamboat captain was killed and Marlow

was not about to let another soul take this job away from him. He was fixed

to get the job, but wasn’t sure how to get it himself This is where I start

to get even more confused with Marlow.

 

Marlow didn’t want to have to work to get the job, so he asked his Aunt to

get the job for him. This struck me as very odd considering the way that

Marlow felt about women. He felt that women should just do there own little

house chores and nothing else, for they weren’t needed and basically would

just be in the way. After asking his Aunt to get him the job he made a

comment that really made me angry. Marlow stated, "Then-would you believe

it?-I tried the women. I, Charlie Marlow set the women to work-to get a job.

Heavens! Well, you see it was the notion that drove me." ( Conrad 4 ) This

is the point in the story that I find Marlow to be rather lazy. If he had

been so manly and wise don’t you think that he could have gotten the job

himself? I do. Of course his Aunt came through for him and Marlow was off

to roam the river of his desire.

 

Throughout the rest of this story Marlow just continues to confuse and at

some times even frustrate me. There was one point in the story that Marlow

almost seemed to have a heart. He saw a homeless man and stared at him,

started to feel a bit sorry, but quickly caught himself almost as if having a conscience was a bad thing.

This is where I saw a big part of Marlow’s heart of darkness.

 

Another thing that really bothered me about Marlow was how he got so caught

Up in the image of Kurtz, even though he didn’t even know him. I didn’t think a

man like Marlow would be a follower, but that just turned out to be another

side of Marlow that I would begin to know. He began to lose sight of

everyone around him and concentrated on just the illusion and image of a man

that he had never even seen.

 

Now that I have read this story I do not like Marlow at all. He is a self

centered, and cold hearted man. He didn’t care about anything or anyone

around him, except for the people that could give him something in return.

Maybe I didn‘t get to what I was supposed to get out of this book, but I

did get that Marlow is an extremely puzzling character. I know that people

have many sides to them, but Marlow seemed to change so fast and drastic. I

do however think that it was a good decision on Conrad’s part to make Marlow

so dimensional. It really added a lot of interest to the novel. It almost

kept you on your toes, because you never knew what type of character

transformation Charlie Marlow was going to under go next.

 

Works Cited

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. W.W. Norton and Company: New York, New York.1988

 

 

 

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