Heart of Darkness: as following Conrad's themes
“There is a machine. It evolved itself, and behold!… it knits. It knits us in, it knits us out. It has knitted time, space, pain, death, corruption, despair, and all the illusions… and nothing matters. I’ll admit however that to look at the remorseless process is something interesting.” Joseph Conrad addresses the evils of this machine that has created modern society and molded its citizens in his book Heart of Darkness. In the story, Marlow, the main character travels into the Congo. He expects to enter a world where a code of moral conduct is followed, but he quickly realizes that morality is not the way of this world, or any world for that matter. Marlow finds, instead, that the world is made up of corruption, death and despair. Corruption is the main theme of Heart of Darkness, and it is reflected in many parts of the book. First of all is Kurtz. “He had collected, bartered, swindled, or stolen more ivory that all the other agents together”(pg. 43), and no doubt committed all forms of corrupted deeds to get this ivory. “It was Kurtz who had ordered the attack to be made on the steamer.” (pg. 58) As the quote explains, he even attacked Marlow’s ship, full of defenseless men, just so he could remain with the native . . .
Later, Marlow’s helmsman, who he had become quite fond of, died. Nowhere did we stop long enough to get a particularized impression, but the general sense of vague and oppressive wonder grew upon me. “It was the shaft of a spear that, either thrown or lunged through the opening, had caught him in the side just below the ribs; the blade had gone in out of sight, after making a frightful gash. ” A symbol of the corruption of the empire is the brick-maker. 14) As is easily understood from this lone paragraph, the Congo was a place filled with despair and death. 47) And finally Marlow experiences Kurtz’s death. While I stood horror-struck, one of these creatures rose to his hands and knees, and went off on all fours towards the river to drink. It was like a weary pilgrimage amongst hints for nightmares. Marlow finds the corruption that surrounds him to be overwhelming and impossible to overcome. I ventured to hint that the company was run for profit. One, with his chin propped on his knees, stared at nothing, in an intolerable and appalling manner: his brother phantom rested its forehead, as if overcome with a great weariness; and all about others were scattered in every pose of contorted collapse, as in some picture of a massacre or a pestilence.
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