Throughout Heart of Darkness, the Lord of the Flies, Hollow Men, and Demian, there seemed to be a pattern of showing morality and the battle between good versus evil in each person. In the Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad transcends the deep, dark African jungle in order to illuminate the true nature of humanity’s heart, filled with the darkness of obsession, corruption, and evil. The story itself follows the protagonist, Marlow, as well as Kurtz, a secretive, mysterious man who resides in the heart of Congo and furthermore represents humanity itself and its evils. Through the savagery seen through the setting with its inhabitants and the primal darkness each human heart contains, Conrad draws a cruel world, possessing horror. As Marlow travels through Africa, the place European strived to …show more content…
In the Heart of Darkness, Marlow enters and recounts his story in Africa where he finds “hollow men” only on the hunt for ivory and wealth, filled with only greed. In the heart of the Congo, the protagonist encounters Kurtz, who realizes the true nature and horror of what humanity possesses. Eliot expresses that “those who have crosses with direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom remember us - if at all - not as lost.” He basically suggests that the people who have ventured into purgatory or hell have the recognition of a higher state of morality, heaven. Essentially, those people can see the truth behind people. After Kurtz reveals the darkness of people’s hearts during the imperialism, he utters “the horror! The horror!” just before he parishes at the end of the novel. Through the realizations of the evils behind the imperialism, some gathered insight of the true nature of people, greedy for wealth and power, leading to corruption, evil, and obsession. Some of humanity can differentiate good and evil through their