heart of darkness
...starts to act as if he’s better than everyone else. Basically he takes advantage of the fact that he’s a European and automatically feels that he’s superior to the residents of the Congo. The praises that he received from the natives boosted his ego to the point where he eventually gave into the darkness within him. He became so hungry for power that nothing else seemed to matter to him anymore. All morals were lost and all that was left was the inhumane way that he treated the people around him in order to get what he wanted. All consideration for feelings and wellbeing became nonexistent and all that remained was a constant need for more power. Kurtz’s initial intentions were simply just to help out the natives but the more they praised him, the more control he took over them. By taking so much control over their everyday lives, he became less a helper but more a dictator. Soon after, Kurtz turned to a life of murdering, stealing and persecuting and this is what I believe ran through his mind as he was lying there on his deathbed. It had finally hit him that he had come to the Congo to do one thing but had ended up doing something so different. He realized that he was so weak at heart that he easily gave into the dark side, gave into the hunger for power and sub sequentially ruined so many lives. This would be one of the reasons that made him cry out, “the horror! The horror!” as he faced death. In the final moments of Kurtz’s life, he is described as having an ivory face, an allusion to the fact that his greed leads him to be so involved in the lucrative elephant ivory market. I think that aside from realizing that his desire for power was one of the reasons for his self-destruction, that greed was another factor. “He would… go off on another ivory hunt; disappear for weeks; forget himself amongst these people -- forget himself” (pg. 52) Though Kurtz went to Africa to work with the natives, he ended up making the natives work for him. This hunger for money made him lose touch with the civil way he was brought up and give in to the barbaric way of life in the Congo. Kurtz stopped at nothing at to get his precious ivory even when that meant living his life as a criminal. Ultimately, this was what robbed Kurtz of his civility and made him into such a cold-hearted and ruthless person. “He is an emissary of pity and science and progress, and devil knows what else.” As he neared death, Kurtz realized that he never took the time to stop and think about what he was becoming, about what he was doing, and why he was doing what he was. So, when he voiced the words, “The horror! The horror!” he was referring to the fact he had let greed take the best of him which ultimately brought out the most basic and vile aspects of human nature within him. Kurtz’s descent into insanity was shown clearly when he voiced the words, “The horror! The horror!” By this he meant that he had come to self-realization about all the wrong that he had done in his life. "I saw on that ivory face the expression of somber pride, of ruthless power, or craven terror --- of an intense and hopeless despair" (pg. 64). Also I think that he was not just speaking of the wrongs that he committed, but he was also referring to the wrongs of life. As he lay there on his deathbed, I believe that in some sense his life did flash before his eyes and as that was happening, it hit Kurtz that he had come to the Congo for completely diffe...