Heart of Darkness is a novella written by Joseph Conrad that tells the story of a man named Charles Marlow, who travels up the Congo River in search of a European man named Kurtz. Along the way, Marlow encounters several other characters who play important roles in the story. In this essay, I will discuss three of the main characters in Heart of Darkness: Charles Marlow, Kurtz, and the Manager.
Charles Marlow is the protagonist of the story and serves as the narrator. He is a sailor who is hired by a Belgian trading company to travel up the Congo River to find Kurtz, who has become a legendary figure in the region. Marlow is a complex character who is curious and adventurous, but also skeptical and disillusioned. He is deeply troubled by the brutality and corruption that he witnesses in the Congo, and is ultimately disillusioned by the hypocrisy and greed of European imperialism.
Kurtz is a European man who has become a mysterious and almost mythic figure in the Congo. He is a brilliant and talented man who has become deeply involved in the savagery and corruption of the region, and is revered by the native people as a god-like figure. Kurtz's descent into madness and his ultimate demise serve as a warning to Marlow and the other characters about the dangers of imperialism and the corrupting influence of power.
The Manager is the representative of the Belgian trading company that employs Marlow. He is a cold and calculating man who is more concerned with profits than with the well-being of the native people or the moral implications of imperialism. The Manager serves as a foil to Marlow, representing the worst aspects of European imperialism and the corrupting influence of power.
In conclusion, the characters of Charles Marlow, Kurtz, and the Manager are central to the themes and ideas of Heart of Darkness. Marlow's journey up the Congo River serves as a metaphor for the journey into the heart of darkness, and the other characters serve as examples of the dangers and corrupting influence of imperialism.
Heart OF Darkness
The Manager is average in appearance and possesses a strange capacity to cause uneasiness in people around him. If that means killing Kurtz and covering up the fact, then that is what he will do. He doesn't care about exploring, morals, or anything else. He is loved by all. He dresses in colorful clothing and reminds Marlow of a harlequin when he first sees him. Once, I remember, we came upon a man-of-war anchored off the coast.
Heart of Darkness
There he observes white Europeans forcing Africans to blast a hole through a cliff for no apparent reason. She asks Marlow what Kurtz's last words were. He is one of the few colonials who seems to have accomplished anything: he has trained a native woman to care for his wardrobe. He is a cruel man but ironically also the picture of the "civilized European. His unwavering support of Kurtz makes him humble and admirable. However, while at inner station in the mid of jungle, he sets himself up as a natives god. A hint that Africa brings changes to people, he beats up a local village chief, which leads to his death.
Heart of Darkness: Character List & Analysis
Marlow The protagonist of Heart of Darkness. They all want to be appointed to a station so that they can trade for ivory and earn a commission, but none of them actually takes any effective steps toward achieving this goal. Still, he is intended to be a versatile character, one of the few who does not belong to a distinct class, and he thus can relate to different kinds of people with more ease than his peers. Director The captain in charge aboard the Thames River ship, from which Marlow tells the tale. The Accountant The Accountant is also working at Outer Station.
Heart of Darkness: Marlow
They hate natives and treat them like animals. However, Marlow fails to see Africans as equals. Kurtz didn't explore unknown lands, but rather explored his own soul. As Marlow travels from the Outer Station to the Central Station and finally up the river to the Inner Station, he encounters scenes of torture, cruelty, and near-slavery. The Manager only cares about pushing the company forward.
Heart of Darkness
They are obsessed with keeping up a veneer of civilization and proper conduct, and are motivated entirely by self-interest. He helps Marlow fix the steamboat and they become friends. He finds it repulsive that Europeans mistreat African laborers at the stations along the river. He was once a sailor, and he seems affected by Kurtz's tale due to his somewhat romantic nature. Thus, both Marlow and the reader begin to sympathize with Kurtz and view the Company with suspicion. The character of the Manager is based on a real person, Camille Delcommune.
Joseph Conrad "Heart of Darkness" Characters 🤓
He is a serviceable pilot, although Marlow never comes to view him as much more than a mechanical part of the boat. The number of ridiculous situations Marlow witnesses act as reflections of the larger issue: at one station, for instance, he sees a man trying to carry water in a bucket with a large hole in it. Conrad's work was instrumental in this effort, particularly his experimentation with the use of time and non-chronological narratives. He is one of the favorite man of the Manager. Joseph Conrad's novels reside in the transition period between Victorianism, with its strict conventions and focus on polite society, and Modernism, which sought to explode old conventions and invent new literary forms to convey human experience more fully.
