Character Kurtz in Heart Of Darkness

Explore how Joseph Conrad presents the character Kurtz in ‘heart of darkness'

How does Conrad convince us that Kurtz has the ‘nature of a supernatural being'?

Heart of Darkness is an important novella in terms of pre 1914 literature and is considered by many one of the most important books in literature. In the 1890's Conrad sailed up the river Congo, so the novel was written from a good knowledge of the surroundings and personal experience of colonialism and the oppression that was a major part of Africa in the late 1800's. Although slavery was abolished in most places, slavery was still a major part of African life in those days due to many European countries fighting over the prospect of ivory and land and when they did get the land they slaved the Africans either keeping them in Africa to help with the ivory trade or shipping them off to Europe to be slaves there. In the novel Conrad presents Kurtz as a mystical being a god almost to the native people but he also shows him to be an evil and sinister man with a ‘heart of darkness' he does this by not actually presenting Kurtz as a human but a figure a ‘vapour of the earth.' Conrad also leads the reader along by not actually meeting Kurtz until the very end the rest of the book relies on peoples tales of Kurtz and what he has done which lead us to believe that he is a supernatural being.

The role of the narrator in the novel is a key part of what makes the novel so appealing because it is the story teller Marlow who has been through all of it, although there is one other narrator at the start of the novella who sets the scene. The primary narrator also talks about Marlow in a strange way he claims that he was sat in a way that ‘resembled an idol.' This infers that Marlow is a very wise and very powerful figure. He also talks a lot about the light and the dark ‘the sky, without a speck, was a benign immensity of unstained light.' Only the gloom to the west. Brooding over the upper reaches, became more sombre every minute, as if angered by the approach of the sun.' This extract paints a very vivid picture in the readers minds it talks about getting closer to Africa every minute and the evil is just waiting there as if angered by there presence.