Little Effect On Marlow's Men example essay topic

Review of Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad The main characters in the book are Marlow a young man who decides that it would be exiting to travel into Africa hunting ivory and does so by taking the place of a dead steamboat captain. Kurtz a famous man among the ivory seekers who has lived and hunted on the continent for a while and has exploited the savages becoming a little crazy. The Russian fool a man who is known by his clothes with many colorful patches making him look like a clown and he works with Kurtz who proves to be poor company for him. Finally the Intended she is Kurtz's bride to be who at the end of the book still thinks that Kurtz was the great man that she remembered him to be and Marlow doesn't have the heart to tell her otherwise. Marlow sits at the Thames River in the evening with several other people and begins telling the story about how he entered into the "Dark Continent" out of nowhere.

No one wants to listen but he continues telling the story anyway. Marlow expressed a desire to go to Africa to his Aunt who got him a position as a captain of a steamboat of an ivory company. The previous captain Fre slaven died in a scuffle with the natives and Marlow took his place. Several days later Marlow travels to Africa and gets to the first station where he meets the accountant who is keeping track of the funds in Kurtz's company.

The man is interesting to Marlow since he's been on the continent for three years and he stills wears nice clothing and keeps himself clean. Marlow feels that the blacks are being over worked by the whites at meaningless tasks. Marlow continues down the river on his steamboat with a crew of several whites and about 20 to 30 blacks. As he travels down the Congo River, he comes across this shack where he picks up wood, and a note telling him to travel carefully. He continues down the river and becomes surrounded by savages in the fog.

Marlow is frightened but the savages don't do anything until the fog breaks. The savages begin to attack and Marlow's men fire back. The arrows of the savages have little effect on Marlow's men or his boat and the guns of the crew men have little effect on the savages since they fire too high. Only Marlow's helmsman dies.

Marlow blows the whistle and mysteriously, all the savages retreat in fear. Shortly after, Marlow reaches the inner station, where he is greeted by the Russian Fool who seems to survive in the heart of the continent by being oblivious to the world around him. Kurtz is very ill and needs to be taken back to England, but he does not want to go. Marlow later finds out that Kurtz is the one who ordered the attack on the steamboat so that they couldn't take him back to England. Kurtz is worshipped by the natives and completely exploits them. Kurtz tries to escape to the natives by crawling on al fours through the jungle but Marlow catches him and convinces him to come back to the steamboat and head back for England.

While still on the river, Kurtz dies saying, "The horror, the horror". Marlow returns to England and he visits Kurtz's intended who is still in mourning a year after Kurtz's death. She still remembers Kurtz as the great man he was before he left, and Marlow doesn't tell her what he had become before he dies. Marlow gives Kurtz her old letters and leaves. I think that Conrad was trying to describe imperialism to the people of Europe, to show them its bad effects on the people it enslaved.

The African people in this book are described as objects as peaces of machinery. Africans become for Marlow a mere backdrop, he makes it clear that they are not members of the cast of the book but peaces of scenery. The book is full of examples of insane work that the natives were forced to perform and yet Marlow is not swayed in his work but it may bother him deep down. I feel that the message was clearly sent to the readers of how terrible imperialism was for the people caught in its net. I think that Heart of Darkness is a perfect example of an allegory for the European imperialist experience as a whole.

I feel this book was a good example of how wrong imperialism can be but in some cases it can be very good. The book was well written but I didn't enjoy it to much because it was a depressing story.