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Greed In Joseph Conrad's Heart Of Darkness

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Tryston Strickland Dr. Norwood Honors English IV March 8, 2018 The Flaw: Human Nature In Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad shows human nature’s tendency toward callousness through the use of greed, imperialism, and darkness. Throughout the book the topics of greed, imperialism, and heartlessness give examples of the flaw that humans cannot fix. Humans tend to help others when there is a benefit for them to gain. This greed drives humans to overlook the unthinkable in order to satisfy their lust for power and money. The attempted help of the Englishmen becomes the disease that slowly starts to cripple the host to gain the power they desire. Conrad utilizes ideas of greed, imperialism, and the symbolism of darkness to show that humans are inherently selfish. Conrad lays out the instances where greed takes over a main character and changes him into one of the “Savages” (109). Mr. Kurtz is the main focus in this story and he undergoes a deep change that was due to his greed in the ivory trade. He started off normal …show more content…

This greed grew strong and grew into the establishment of imperialism through the use of slavery. While the greed is still growing the English have know lost all of their moral value and have cast aside the meaning of life for the Natives of the Congo. This hunger of greed allowed the civilized to become the uncivilized “savages” they paint the Natives to be. Mr. Kurtz is the man that the english view as the idol in a way but dies seeing “The Horror”(154) of all the darkness the “light”(68) has made. Works Cited Qu, Caie. “Light and Dark Symbols in Heart of Darkness.” Asian Social Science, Yan'an University, May 2008, citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.904.9681&rep=rep1&type=pdf. Sarvan, C. P. “Racism and the Heart of Darkness.” University of Zambia, 1977.

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