Heart of Darkness Our environments largely shape our identities. In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the narrator, Marlow, demonstrates the impact of the African wilderness on a man named Mr. Kurtz, who goes into the Congo as a successful man working for a big ivory company. His downfall seems to be a result of his willingness to ignore the hypocritical rules that govern European colonial conduct and allow his surroundings to dictate his outcome. Like Marlow, Kurtz also wished to travel to Africa in search of adventure specially to complete great acts of humanizing, improving, instructing. Once he tested the power of darkness that enveloped the jungle, however, Kurtz abandoned his philanthropic idea and set himself farther from European society and deeper into the inner station. The environment thoroughly seeped into Kurt’z soul and changed him for the worse in his time in Congo. The reader gets a glimpse of Kurtz's transformation when Marlow is talking to the Manager and says that Mr. Kurtz is a remarkable man and the Manager says with special importance that Kurtz was a great man. The Manager puts an emphasis on the fact that Kurtz is not the same noteworthy man that he was when he first came to the Congo. Conrad takes time to characterize Kurtz before the Congo expedition so the reader can see the tragic amount of change. On the surface Kurtz is the embodiment of civilization, whether it is his pamphlet on the natives or his discussions with the Russian adventurer about higher order material like love, justice and the conduct of life. He had both the intellect to understand these things and the eloquence to convey them in an effective manner. It was never made clear exactly what he did before coming to the Congo, but the consensus was that he would be or was successful in all of the things he chose to attempt, suggested occupations were writer, musician, artist or a leader of an extremist party. In all of this the talents of Kurtz cannot be doubted and he was supposed to represent all of Europe as 'all Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz'. He was also supposedly embodied with all the best ideals of civilization. Thus equipped, in intellect, training and with the backing of the Company, he set out to the jungle not only to get ivory and make money, but also to bring light to the 'darkness'. He set out, and was destroyed. The reader sees how Kurtz struggled psychologically to keep his sanity as he delved deeper into the darkness of the African Congo. At one point in the novella, Kurtz decided to leave the Inner Station and return with a fleet of canoes carrying his ivory, but turned back about half-way. Here one can see the internal conflict of Kurtz, on the one hand, he understands that staying in the jungle is not a good idea, but this reason is not enough
