Who Is Kurtz Dehumanize In Heart Of Darkness

The practice of denial in order to oneself is not an uncommon practice for people to avoid facing the ramifications of their actions. Many characters in Heart of Darkness use this technique of self-deception to cope with the horrors of their actions of imperialism. The characters explore the . Marlow explores when a person deceives themselves about their motivation. The European ivory traders explore when there is a delusion between intent and action. Kurtz is used to explore when the illusion one has used to protect themselves from the horrors of their actions shatters

Marlow deludes himself to the purpose of his journey to Africa. The ivory traders claim to be spreading civilization, but truly do fall to the depravity of the jungle. Kurtz deceives himself that his philosophy

In Marlow's quest to find Kurtz for his job for the

People in living in England, far away from imperialism, is told that “Each station should be like a beacon on the road towards better things, a center for trade of course, but also for humanizing. (47) As Marlow visits the stations, he finds them to be places that dehumanize the savages further, are inefficient despite being beacons of society in the dark of the wilds. Marlow notes that instead of the focus of the stations being the claimed goal to spread civilization, the main goal seems to be “to tear treasure out of the bowels of the land”(21), completely ignoring the humanizing intent and leaving only the violent means of raiding the Africans for ivory. This dissonance between intention and action is more visible in the women in European society, the examples in Heart of Darkness being Marlow's aunt and Kurtz's intended. The women are fed lies about the actions of men in Africa to protect the image of men and their conquest of Africa. Marlow’s belief about women is that they live in