Greed In The Heart Of Darkness

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"The greedy stir up conflict, but those who trust in the Lord will prosper" (Psalm 28:25) There are infinitely many themes throughout The Heart of Darkness. The novel explains of a small part of what happened during the genocide in the Congo from the perspective of a man that was caught directly in the middle of the the conflict. One cause that is extremely easy to draw from the text is about the greed of man. Greed caused the antagonist of the story to become animal-like in his action towards the native people in the Congo. Through the literary elements of conflict, tone and symbolism I will explain the theme of man's greed causes pain. Joseph Conrad uses symbolism is used to convey the role of many land features and the way people fit into the story. The Thames river used to travel to Kurtz' …show more content…
The main tone that is very prominent in the book is darkness. The darkness throughout the story points to how evil man can become. The opportunity for man to become filthy rich can cause them to do drastic thing such as putting their health and the well-being of others behind their need for money. Kurtz' greed took over his actions to make him desensitized to the pain of others. Therefore, Kurtz treated the natives as his pawns and was very brutal to them, in some cases he cut off their hands if they were insubordinate. Greed caused desensitization, Kurtz' desensitization made him heartlessness towards the natives. A natural conclusion that can be drawn is that Kurtz doesn't find human life to be precious and he only needs it for his own personal gain. All of the pain that came to the natives was driven by the greed of Kurtz. "Evidentially the appetite for more ivory had got the better of the-- what shall I say?--- less material aspirations." (Conrad 52) This direct quote of the story proves that Kurtz was motivated by greed because he was willing to stop being worshiped as a god to gain more

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