Heart of Darkness

Here's another book analysis for you: Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. In this novel, a sailor, Marlow, tells his shipmates about his adventures on the Congo River in Africa. He is the captain of a riverboat, but spends most of his time on land repairing his ship and dealing with the inefficient bureacracy of the colonial forces that are governing the land. However, his most remarkable experience is travelling upriver to find a man named Kurtz, who was employed by the same company as Marlow and has been involved in the ivory trade. All Marlow's employer wants is the ivory, but Marlow himself is fascinated by Kurtz. When, through a series of misadventures, they reach Kurtz's settlement, he is dying of fever, but they find that all the natives love him, he is somewhat of a ruler, or at least a treasured member of their community. In the end, they take Kurtz and the ivory away, the employer gets rich from the ivory, Kurtz dies;, his last words are, "The horror! The horror!", and Marlow survives to tell the story.
What does this rather depressing story mean? Well, something rather depressing, actually. The colonialist forces, as represented by the manager of the company and the bureacracy, are in charge...and they win in the end. Marlow seems to be a representation of humanity, he realizes that the "savages" are humans and is always focused on people in the story. Perhaps, rather, he is just a good judge of character, who recognizes truth and justice or the lack thereof. Kurtz can be seen as a representation of ideas or idealism. i think this is somewhat seen in the line, "all of Europe went into the making of Kurtz", and he is educated, an influential speaker, and a writer. He had some rather strange ideas, that Marlow had seen in his writings, and ideas that at times seemed contradictory. However, his ideas seem to have become refined in the wilderness, and he was on the verge of great things...but his life was cut short by sickness. (interesting how Kurtz sounds like the german word for breif (Kurz)). Perhaps, if he had more time, had not been influenced by the colonialists to work as much, ect., would he have done more? He was despised by the company, but though Marlow is made uneasy by him, he is admired by both Marlow, his friends, and the natives. Could we be looking at idealism stifled by the horror of reality? Which only leads me to more questions. Are ideas always smothered by reality? Is there any hope for new ideas and radical thinkers? Will greed/capitalism always win? Everyone is looking out for themselves. Maybe there is a connexion in The Savage's statement from Brave New World...that is, "If you had God, you'd have a reason for self denial", and he also mentions chastity and independent thinking, and the world ruler responds, "But industrial civilization is only possible when there's no self denial". And in that book, too, the hero (The Savage) dies. But that's because he wouldn't be left alone, though that was all he wanted, to be alone with God. He hung himself so that he could be alone in peace with God, without the debauchery of his society to distract him. But this again leads to more problems and questions...again, are all the "idealistic" notions of self-denial, chastity, God, ect., incompatable with society, with other people, with government? So as not to leave on such a depressing note, i'm going to give a bit of an answer. As Christians, we are called to continue obediently under Christ, called to suffer, called to disciple the ends of the earth. So there are a couple of possibilities. 1) The "ideas" are not incompatible, that's why we're supposed to "do" all this stuff. 2) The "ideas" are incompatible with the world. But we continue to obey, we suffer anyway...but our home is not here anyway, our hope is in an undying Savior, and our future is in a new heaven and earth, where corruption is gone, where God's perfection is evident.
Now i must cease before i launch my psyche into a complete existential crisis.:)