This greed is further explored as Marlow becomes closer to meeting Kurtz. When he is discussing Mr. Kurtz and his unbounded greed for ivory, Marlow notes, “You should have heard him say, ‘My ivory.’ Oh yes, I heard him. ‘My Intended, my ivory, my station, my river, my --’ Everything belonged to him” (55). Kurtz thinks everything is his, which is an unbounded greed, but explains how he collected so much ivory. However, he is hollow. Greed is the guiding force for Kurtz, even above relationships with others. His harlequin, who nurses him back to health twice, is met with greed as the harlequin says, “...he would shoot me unless I gave him the ivory and then cleared out of the country, because he could do so, and had a fancy for it, and there
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When Marlow spots the “heads on stakes” (66) in front of Kurtz’s house, he recognizes that Kurtz “lacked restraint in the gratification of his various lusts” suggesting that “he was hollow at the core” (67). Kurtz, like the hollow men who are “behaving as the wind behaves” in T.S. Eliot’s poem, is driven by no force other than his lusts. The men in T.S. Eliot’s poem move like the wind, with no clear direction but simply where the wind takes them, just as Kurtz moves with no clear purpose other than where his lusts drive him. Greed, anger, and lust drive him to steal, murder, and have an affair, all of which make him a vessel of desires and nothing else. The savagery of this situation is manifested even in Kurtz’s movements, as he is unable to walk and “is crawling on all-fours” (75) when Marlow goes to find him one night. Walking on all fours is something an animal does, as humans are bipeds, but Kurtz has devolved into something so savage that he acts similar to an animal. He is hollow, void of humanity, and thus is animalistic in nature. Marlow refers to the darkness of Kurtz as “that Shadow -- this wandering and tormented thing” (76), suggesting a similarity to the opening stanza of T.S. Eliot’s poem which describes the hollow men as “shape without form, shade without colour,/ Paralysed force, gesture without motion;” just like a shadow. In order to stop Kurtz from doing something drastic to get them both hurt, Marlow reminds Kurtz “You will be lost” (76), a statement which does little to Kurtz as he is already lost. He has already lost his humanity to the beast inside, he is already hollow. Imperialism has made Kurtz into a monster, and Marlow tries to break the “heavy, mute spell of the wilderness -- that seemed to draw [Kurtz] to its pitiless breast by the awakening of forgotten and brutal instincts, by the memory of gratified and monstrous passions” (76) but he fails to do so.
When Marlow spots the “heads on stakes” (66) in front of Kurtz’s house, he recognizes that Kurtz “lacked restraint in the gratification of his various lusts” suggesting that “he was hollow at the core” (67). Kurtz, like the hollow men who are “behaving as the wind behaves” in T.S. Eliot’s poem, is driven by no force other than his lusts. The men in T.S. Eliot’s poem move like the wind, with no clear direction but simply where the wind takes them, just as Kurtz moves with no clear purpose other than where his lusts drive him. Greed, anger, and lust drive him to steal, murder, and have an affair, all of which make him a vessel of desires and nothing else. The savagery of this situation is manifested even in Kurtz’s movements, as he is unable to walk and “is crawling on all-fours” (75) when Marlow goes to find him one night. Walking on all fours is something an animal does, as humans are bipeds, but Kurtz has devolved into something so savage that he acts similar to an animal. He is hollow, void of humanity, and thus is animalistic in nature. Marlow refers to the darkness of Kurtz as “that Shadow -- this wandering and tormented thing” (76), suggesting a similarity to the opening stanza of T.S. Eliot’s poem which describes the hollow men as “shape without form, shade without colour,/ Paralysed force, gesture without motion;” just like a shadow. In order to stop Kurtz from doing something drastic to get them both hurt, Marlow reminds Kurtz “You will be lost” (76), a statement which does little to Kurtz as he is already lost. He has already lost his humanity to the beast inside, he is already hollow. Imperialism has made Kurtz into a monster, and Marlow tries to break the “heavy, mute spell of the wilderness -- that seemed to draw [Kurtz] to its pitiless breast by the awakening of forgotten and brutal instincts, by the memory of gratified and monstrous passions” (76) but he fails to do so.