lighthod Human Soul Exposed in Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness :: Heart Darkness Essays

The Human Soul opened in The Heart of Darkness In Joseph Conrads novel, The Heart of Darkness, Charlie Marlow narrates the story of his transit into the dark continent, Africa. Through his experiences he learns a lot roughly himself and about the nature of mankind. He discovers that all humans have the capability at bottom themselves to do good or evil. Outside circumstances substantially put to work which path a human will take. Marlow travels not only if(prenominal) by dint of the darkness of Africa, simply similarly through the darkness of the human soul. England displace missionaries to help civilize the natives of Africa. To Marlow, this is the purport of colonization. During his journey he comes to see how the Africans be exploited for their labor and the natural resources of the land. They were dying slowly . . . nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation. . . brought from all the recesses of the coast in all the fair play of time contracts, lost in un congenial surroundings, fed on strange food, they sickened, became inefficient, and were then allowed to crawl away and rest. (p.83). As the quote implies, after the natives served their purpose they were just now ignored. What started out to be a good cause became deformed by the greed for ivory and other riches. The natives were weak and no challenger for the civilized economically motivated Englishmen. There was no resistance. They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force - nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others. They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got. (p.70). Instead of creation colonizers, the circumstances allowed the British to turn conquerors. In the same way that Englands motives changed, so does the motives of many of the individuals who enter the dark continent. Kurtz starts out being the best operator the Ivory Company sends to Africa. He comes t here with good intentions, not only to do his job for the company, but also he wants to help the natives. As Kurtz himself states, Each station should be like a beacon on the road towards better things, a centre for trade of course, but also for humanizing, improving, instructing. (p.104). Obsessed with meeting Kurtz, Marlow finally realizes the man he is seeking has become evil and is exploiting the same people that he initially wanted to help.