Sherry's Entry on Part III of Heart of Darkness

In part III of Heart of Darkness, I felt that Joseph Conrad developed the reader more than anything throughout the whole story. I found in the previous parts that I classified Kurtz as a mad man, but I learned to think of him as a dictator. He was a victim of darkness and consumed to imperialism while on his journeys. I didn’t feel that the tribe adored him as much as they emphasized because it stated that Kurtz came with “thunder and lightning”. Which I felt could have been qualities of a dictator.
In part III I also saw Marlow as a good listener, for the fact that he was friendly and patient with the Russian, but he is opinionated and judgmental whether he knows it or not. There was also some more textual evidence that Kurtz was materialistic, obsessing over ivory, but it was revealed through a “he said, she said” by the Russian to Marlow, through Marlow to us. In my opinion the Russian is just as crazy as Kurtz, but more humane. On page 138 the Russian said, “…the wilderness had found him out early, and had taken on him a terrible vengeance…it had whispered…with this great solitude-” where he is sort of rationalizing with Kurtz and seems like he understands Kurtz well, so he’s crazy. The ironic part is that the Russian stays and takes care of Kurtz when he is really ill, and admires him but is ashamed to be compared to Kurtz. I won’t ever understand him; maybe it’s the loyalty from being a disciple.

One way Conrad develops the reader is how I felt that Marlow thought of Kurtz as an idol and was encouraged to find him for that reason, but he says he doesn’t idolize him at all. There was one example of character development I spotted with Kurtz, which the journalist called Kurtz an extremist, and that is before the journey took place. So that would lead to my vision of Kurtz resembling dictatorship qualities from his experience and discovery of this new society in the jungle rubbing off on him. On page 153, Kurtz’s features were described and I could compare it to Dorian Gray and the portraits features. When Marlow saw Kurtz, he described “his features…ivory face the expression of somber pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror- of an intense and hopeless despair” (153). I compared it to Dorian Gray’s portrait because of how ones features, when aging, mold with their actions in life. Since Kurtz was kind of crazy, dictator-like and obsessed with ivory, his features were molded by his way of life and expressed his character.

I really enjoyed part III of them all, it brought it home and made me say that HoD is indeed a great book. I’ll have to read it over several times to understand and more but I won’t mind.