Conrad's Heart of Darkness and the Nature of Man Heart Darkness essays

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The Nature of Man in Heart of Darkness Marlow makes some specific conclusions about the nature of man in Heart of Darkness. He specifically believes that men are evil and inhuman. He gives a few examples of how this is so in the book. Just reading the book and seeing the way humans act towards each other you are able to see that humans are evil. Marlow also mentions Kurtz and the manager and their inhumanity. There is a lot of inhumanity. The people are so inhuman that when they are starving, they would be able to eat the youth. The black man is beaten unmercifully and there is a black man with a bullet in his head. Marlow describes humans being dark, inhuman shapes by the way they act towards each other. " Dark human shapes could be made out in the distance, flitting indistinctly against the gloomy border of the forest." (pg.141) This is the way Marlow sees humans, even though he does not come out and say it in these quotes. Marlow brings up a specific inhuman being which to him is Kurtz. He says that Kurtz has a dark nature to him. " He could be very terrible. You can't judge Mr. Kurtz as you would an ordinary man."(pg.135) Kurtz is a thief and a murderer. One of the murders he has done was drying black heads on the stakes. Kurtz was also a liar and at the end of the book Marlow ends up lying himself. To Marlow there is a different person who exudes more evil than Kurtz does. The manager is truly a monster. The manager thought that Marlow should have been hanged."You ought to be hanged"(pg.135) The manager wanted to kill Marlow, after Kurtz's death and he really didn't care much about Kurtz's death either. The only thing that the manager cared about was how to get and keep the ivory. Overall Marlow believes that white men are cruel. They are inhuman and have no respect for others. What led Marlow to believe this was the manager and Kurtz. Through out the book Marlow and Kurtz show how inhuman they are by torturing and murdering other human beings.

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