Why is kurtz so important

Even though the slave trade was beginning to decline by the early 19th century, it gave the Europeans a pass into the whole continent, enabling them to divide the land as they pleased.

The push for power was motivated by greed and an overwhelming desire to control every aspect of valuable foreign areas. As slaves were the biggest resource of the time, the banning of slave trade in Africa in the early nineteenth century caused European disinterest in continent that they were once heavily dependent on. As a result, Africa was desperate to be relevant again, their economy depended on it. What that means is once Great Britain established complete control of South Saharan Africa, they began to export the resources they found that they could use.

These charts are proof of how the European's wanted resources, and that is one of the main reasons for the imperialization of Africa. Not only did the European nations want the continent's resources, but they had an equal hunger for power.

Heart of Darkness is quite short, yet intriguing, due to the content of the novel. Heart of Darkness was written during the time of British imperialism and extreme exploitation of Africans in the Congo.

The British were exploiting the Africans in an effort to extract ivory from the primitive jungle. Open Document. Essay Sample Check Writing Quality. Heart of Darkness - The Changing Personality of Kurtz Kurtz's character is fully facet in Conrad's Heart of Darkness , not because of his conventional roll of antagonist, but for his roll in a historical fiction as a character with important roll in society, influenced by those close to him.

Kurtz makes some key developments in the way he interacts with others, in large part due to the words and actions of society and Kurtz's acquaintances. Heart of Darkness is a novel based on European imperialism in the late nineteenth-early twentieth century. During the turn of the century in , the more significant countries in Europe i. England, France, Germany, et al.

Page 73 Trade routes were established and the home countries found reliable executive willing to travel and develop relations in the country. In Conrad 's novel, Kurtz was this man.

He started out with a noble goal, i. Page Kurtz's characteristics are best seen through his work as an Ivory trader in the territory known as Congo. In this early life Mr. Kurtz had been a man of sound view and an enlightened outlook upon life. On one occasion he had written a pamphlet in which he had argued that the white man had a great responsibility towards the savages who recognized his superior abilities and gifts.

Having lived among them, Mr. Kurtz he has been satisfying all the primitive appeties and their gratification include all kinds of sex perversions as collective sex orgies, gang rape, homosexually, sadist and masochistic practices and so on. However before dying Mr. Kurtz had pronounced a judgment upon the adventures which his soul had gone through on this earth. The judgment was. The horror! Evidently while doing he had become keenly aware of evil which he had been committing during his stay among the savages and of the diabolical deeds which he had been performing in association and in collaboration with savages.

Even the civilized aspect his life in the Congo had not been of the kind of inspire any hope of salvation in the dying man because as civilized man, he had all the time felt observed by the his passion of ivory. Thus, though the last word of Kurtz Conrad is determined to make his reader understand that the fate of Kurtz is that of any man place in the same position. You may watch the following video about the Analysis of Kurtz in Heart of Darkness. Critical note of nurses songs with the reference of Song of..

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock represents conflict of modern man. Robert Browning as a writer of dramatic monologue. Tennyson as a representative poet of his age or Victorian Period. The lamb by William Blake analysis theme summary symbolism. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Share on Facebook. Maybe that's why Marlow tells us repeatedly that Kurtz has "no restraint" 2. It's not as simple as "Kurtz goes to jungle; Kurtz becomes like native Africans; Heads on sticks ensue.

The horror! See, Africans do have a sense of decency and restraint. Think of the cannibals who eat rotten hippo meat instead of attacking the pilgrims whom they outnumber five to one. But not Kurtz. Kurtz has fallen a complete victim to the power of the jungle, has transformed into its "spoiled and pampered favorite. He's basically become a child, and not a nice one, either: a greedy, selfish, and brutal playground bully.

Or as Marlow so beautifully says, the "powers of darkness have claimed him for their own" 2. Marlow ends up refining his obsession with Kurtz all the way down to one particular aspect: his voice. He's not excited about seeing Kurtz or shaking his hand or talking about last night's Lakers game, he says—just hearing him talk. This little narrative interruption drives home just how important Kurtz's voice is. Now consider this: Marlow, sitting on the Nellie and telling his story in the pitch-dark, is explicitly described as "no more to us than a voice" to the men that listen 2.

And then, When he finds an "appeal" in the "fiendish row" of the Africans dancing on shore, he negates it with the claim, "I have a voice, too, and for good or evil mine is the speech that cannot be silenced" 2.

So is this voice business merely another tool to establish connections between Marlow and Kurtz? If Marlow's voice is never silenced, what about Kurtz's?

The guy dies, after all. But are his last words resonant for us? Does Heart of Darkness end on a note of "horror"? The native Africans worship Kurtz like a god, even attacking to keep Kurtz with them. But here's the irony: we're not sure whether Kurtz orders the attack or whether the native Africans do it on their own we get conflicting stories from the harlequin.

Kurtz may be a god, but he's also a prisoner to his devotees. He can order mass killings of rebels, but he can't walk away freely. Ready for some more irony? Kurtz was apparently seven feet tall or so although we figure Marlow was riding the hyperbole train here. But his name means "short" in German—which Marlow makes sure to point out, just in case we're not caught up with our Rosetta Stone cassettes.