How Does Conrad Create Sympathy For Kurtz's Character

Joseph Conrad, author of Heart of Darkness, crafted a complex story dealing with themes of racism, evil, imperialism, and madness. Madness plays a dual role in Conrad’s story. It serves to give the reader sympathy for Kurtz, an ambitiously greedy man on the quest for civilizing foreign land and gaining prosperity. Marlow, the main protagonist is informed at the beginning of the novella that Kurtz is rather insane. With an insatiable hunger for ivory, Kurtz is driven to form alliances and enemies among many of the native Africans. Throughout the course of the story, Marlow has conflicting opinions towards Kurtz. In many ways they are similar, such as their ambition and thirst for adventure. However, Kurtz is blinded by his own ambition and loses himself on the way to reach his goal. He demonstrates that progress isn’t necessarily good and spreading Western culture inevitably means risking being influenced by the darkness that resides in foreign lands. Marlow demonstrates his feelings of indecisiveness on Kurtz’s character through

Marlow had a peculiar fascination with Kurtz ever since upon hearing of him. Kurtz serves as a crucial character in Heart of Darkness acting as what Marlow may become if he abandons all restraint. Able to see the sincerity that once filled Kurtz, Marlow is relatively cautious of keeping Kurtz’s name clean. Even as he was on his death bed, Marlow found reasoning in all that Kurtz did. He delved too deep into African culture and allowed that to drive him further into madness. Due to the fact that Marlow and Kurtz were friends, Marlow did not judge Kurtz’s actions, but rather explained Kurtz’s condition that led to his madness. Marlow spoke of the darkness that became Kurtz, but allows him grace for all that he did. Marlow’s absurd loyalty towards Kurtz led to many conflicting statements involving Marlow’s own remarks dealing with