Heart of Darkness displays that humans are inherently evil, a European country lying to the rest of the world about "civilizing" the natives of the Congo but instead making more like animals and committing genocide. Marlow went down to the Congo at the fact that he thought he would be helping the natives but quickly learned that there was more going on then that. Marlowe morals changed drastically throughout the book and not in the best of ways. Conrads novel, heart of darkness he uses the literary elements of symbolism, conflict, and characterization to illustrate the theme that what humans are surrounded by darkness they can become blind to the truth. Conrad uses various types of symbols throughout the novel to illustrate the theme. For
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A main example of this theme being showed is through Kurtz he's a greedy and egregious person. Kurtz shows people are naturally evil how he treated people and the greed that he had in the Congo. To demonstrate that Congo turned him into a greedy animal and he was willing to do anything to get ivory. “He had taken a high seat amongst the Devils of the land-I mean literally.” (Conrad 44). Kurtz was no longer human he had become fully animal he had no human characteristics left. No one in the Congo thought that Kurtz was a evil man, and the natives looked up to him as a god. Even Marlows heart began to change being around the darkness of the Congo, Marlow became a very boor person when is morals began to change. For example is when Marlow helmsmen on the steamboat was speared on the boat and Marlow didn't care about the loss of life but only cared that he had blood on his shoes (Conrad 42). This shows the theme in the novel because Marlow never sent out to change his morals or to sin but he spent more time in the Congo and started sinning and doing evil things without noticing. Characterization plays a key role in describing the evil brought out by
A main example of this theme being showed is through Kurtz he's a greedy and egregious person. Kurtz shows people are naturally evil how he treated people and the greed that he had in the Congo. To demonstrate that Congo turned him into a greedy animal and he was willing to do anything to get ivory. “He had taken a high seat amongst the Devils of the land-I mean literally.” (Conrad 44). Kurtz was no longer human he had become fully animal he had no human characteristics left. No one in the Congo thought that Kurtz was a evil man, and the natives looked up to him as a god. Even Marlows heart began to change being around the darkness of the Congo, Marlow became a very boor person when is morals began to change. For example is when Marlow helmsmen on the steamboat was speared on the boat and Marlow didn't care about the loss of life but only cared that he had blood on his shoes (Conrad 42). This shows the theme in the novel because Marlow never sent out to change his morals or to sin but he spent more time in the Congo and started sinning and doing evil things without noticing. Characterization plays a key role in describing the evil brought out by