Heart Of Darkness In Thomas Foster's How To Read Literature Like A Professor '

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Kurtz is Marlow’s princess: his damsel in distress. A statement as such may seem out of place for a novella about a man sharing his experience about a trip he took up the Congo River. However, in Thomas Foster’s How To Read Literature Like A Professor, the concept of Heart of Darkness serving a quest story is likely. It applies to Fosters checklist of having: “(a) a quester, (b) a place to go, (c) a stated reason to go there, (d) challenges and trials en route, and (e) the real reason to go there”. Aside from gender role confusion, Kurtz can serve as Marlow’s seeked upon princess present in a standard quest story. The more simple comparison is that between Marlow and a quester. Marlow’s apparent ‘quest’ stems from his childhood interest in maps and exploring the unknown. Though the “...blank spaces on the earth” were later explored, he still took curiosity to the Congo River. He decided he wanted to take a steamboat for trade on it, almost impulsively as he described, “[t]he snake had charmed me”. Being younger and with …show more content…

What cannot be ignored about the ending of his story, however, is what Marlow ended up doing. When it came down to Marlow telling Kurtz’s Intended about her deceased husband, he continued on to let her believe he lived and died a moral, good-natured man. What strikes deepest is when she asked for his last words, Marlow lied completely and said, “The last word he pronounced was- your name”. He went on to justify himself because it would have been “... too dark altogether” to tell her the truth. Not only did Conrad intend Marlow’s quest for his own self-knowledge, but for that of the reader as well, leaving them to see how in order to keep society functioning, it will never be aware of its true darkness at

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