Explanation: “His was an impenetrable darkness. I looked at him as you peer down at a man who is lying at the bottom of a precipice where the sun never shines.”
Exp. This extract has been taken from Joseph Conrad’s short novel Heart of Darkness. Here Marlow offers his observation of Kurtz as he lies sick in bed. Looking at Kurtz’s face, Marlow senses an immense darkness within his soul.
On arriving at the Inner Station, Marlow learns that Mr. Kurtz is seriously ill. He finds Kurtz lying almost in a stupor, muttering deliriously to himself about his life and ideas. As Marlow looks down at him, he has the sensation of gazing at a man lying at the bottom of a precipice filled with darkness. Having become deeply associated with the wilderness and a life of sin, Kurtz appears to Marlow to have been completely transformed into a devil.
Mr. Kurtz’s prolonged stay among the savages has turned him into a savage himself. He begins to identify with the native people and not only participates in their customs and rituals but also presides over their midnight dances. He takes pleasure in human sacrifice, the shedding of human blood, sexual orgies, perversions, and similar barbaric practices. In short, he becomes evil incarnate. Thus, instead of civilizing the natives of the Congo, he falls an easy prey to their influence and brings about his own destruction.
Through this extract, Marlow conveys that the abandonment of moral values inevitably leads to self-destruction, as clearly illustrated by the case of Mr. Kurtz.
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