THEME OF POWER IN HEART OF DARKNESS

INTRODUCTION
Heart of Darkness is one of the masterpieces of Joseph Conrad, which shows the
author’s great humanity and his unreserved/unlimited horror at the crimes
committed by the colonists and imperialists in the African interior/region.
Eurpeans overpowering Africans through:
Enslavement
Natives were being pushed around in chains and forced to work until they cannot
walk anymore. Brutality was being carried out in Africa in the name of progress
and civilization.
Invading their land
They were essentially demonstrating white man’s burden. This brought the
Company to Africa in exchange for the ivory. Hence, diminishing/declining the
native’s power in their own country.
Taking their supplies
Continued to drain the country of its ivory
KURTZ’S POWER
loneliness and alienation have taken their greatest toll on Kurtz, who, cut off from
all humanizing influence, has forfeited/surrendred the restraints of reason and
conscience and given free rein to his most base and brutal instincts.
One of the most powerful station masters. He became consumed by/obsessed with
his power/ never ending desire to gain more/ acquisitiveness.
For Kurtz, ivory means everything. Ivory is his power source. Kurtz is a perfect
representation of society going mad with a greed for power and wealth. The
Ivory is his power source, because he thrives for it, and it gives him power. “my
intended…my ivory … my station.. my river” as if everything in the Congo
belonged to him.
A powerful/god like figure. Natives reported to him and followed him as a ruler. In
the wilderness, he came to believe he was free to do whatever he liked, and the
freedom drove him mad. Freedom to exercise his power pushed him to the edge of
insanity. Conrad suggests that violence and cruelty result when law is absent and
man allows himself to be ruled by whatever brutal passions lie within him. what
Conrad sees emerging from the situation is the profound cruelty and limitless
violence that lies at the heart of the human soul. Kurtz has cast off reason and
allowed his most base and brutal instincts to rule unrestrained. He has
permitted the evil within him to gain the upper hand. Kurtz’s appalling moral
corruption is the result not only of external forces such as the isolation and
loneliness imposed by the jungle, but also, Conrad suggests, of forces that lie
within all men and await the chance to emerge.
most of the power Kurtz has is because he is able to control and communicate
with the native Africans and with this, he has access to large amounts of ivory
which also gives him power with the Company. Superb powers of rhetoric.
painter, musician, writer, and a promising politician
Kurtz has stepped over the tempting edge of complete material and cannot be
rescued. THE HORROR… THE HORROR…Kurtz realizes that what he has done
in life is not good, but awful.
At the Station, Kurtz does not force the natives to work for him by chains and
fetters, but intimidates them by “thunder and lightning” (which are just guns
and bullets) and gradually swings a spiritual control over them to make them
work and even die for him willingly. His great influence upon the natives comes
directly from his possession of modern weapons such as guns and bullets, which
the natives have never seen before, and they take gun fires as “thunder and
lightning.
The heads of “criminals” fixed on the stakes surrounding Kurtz’s residence are
an astounding evidence of the notorious means of intimidation he uses upon the
African natives.
Kurtz initially exists as a man of standards and moralities, who travels to the
Congo bursting with philanthropic ideals. However, these ideals become
devoured by the darkness of imperialism.
Kurtz, Marlow meets at “the farthest point of navigation and the culminating point
of my experience. The farthest point to which human greed and lust can go and
the culminating point where finally Marlow finds his true self from the
experience he has gained during this journey.
MARLOW
During Marlow’s mission to find Kurtz, he is also trying to find himself. He, like
Kurtz had good intentions upon entering the Congo. Conrad tries to show us that
Marlow is what Kurtz has been, and Kurtz is what Marlow could become.
Every human has a little of Marlow and Kurtz in them. Marlow says about himself,
“I was getting savage”, meaning that he was becoming more like Kurtz.
Congo, a region far from the light of civilized action. And Kurtz’s most disturbing
act, the placement of human heads atop poles surrounding his station house, is
only possible in the concealed Congo. Here isolated from the rest of his own
society, the colonists became corrupted by his power and isolation. The dark side
hidden in the colonizers is so obvious.

Conrad tries to show that, once the colonists live in particular environment, like the
jungles of Congo, and far away from civilization, human nature is completely
exposed. Readers can see how terrible the consequences can be, when a man is
under the control of the will to power, a/c to Nietzsche’s theory, and lets this will
to power continue to expand.
In the end, Kurtz died and cried, “The horror! The horror!” Kurtz realizes the
horrors that he has done when he utters his final words. Kurtz’s final statement
means much more to Marlow; he sees it as an evaluation of society as well as
Kurtz’s own soul. For Marlow, the horrors are real and tangible; he understands
Kurtz’s statement because he has seen examples of the same types of horrors.
While Kurtz has gone too far in reverting to savage ways, Marlow has learned a
very important lesson that he will carry with him for the rest of his life. For
Marlow, Kurtz’s words are words to live by; they are an evaluation and a
warning. In short, Marlow feels that Kurtz is a part of himself and possibly all of
humanity. Kurtz has seen horrors that only Marlow would ever understand and
profit from.
Marlow’s journey into self runs through Heart of Darkness. It is interesting to
note that Marlow and Kurtz coming from the same background do not end up the
same in the novel.
Kurtz is the man who jumps off the edge/ crosses over a border of sanity and
plunges into the darkness of insanity. Marlow is the man who goes to the edge
of sanity, looks over the edge, and has enough strength not to go over to the
other side.
he had stepped over the edge, while I had been permitted to draw back my
hesitating foot. Marlow