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Two Themes That Affect Marlow And Kurtz In Heart Of Darkness - Online Term Paper

Two Themes That Affect Marlow And Kurtz In Heart Of Darkness

There are many themes that run through the novel Heart of Darkness.
There are however two main and significant ones. These are the theme of
restraint and man's journey into self.
The importance of restraint is stressed throughout Heart of
Darkness. In the novel Marlow is saved by restraint, while Kurtz is doomed
by his lack of it.
Marlow felt different about Africa before he went, because the
colonization of the Congo had "an idea at the back of it." Despite an
uneasiness, he assumed that restraint would operate there. He soon reaches
the Company station and receives his first shock, everything there seems
meaningless. He sees no evidence here of that "devotion to efficiency"
that ...

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a hyena prowling amongst the corpses of a
battlefield." The cannibals action is "one of those human secrets that
baffle probability." This helps Marlow keep his restraint, for if the
natives can possess this quality Marlow feels he certainly can.
Kurtz is the essence of the lack of restraint Marlow sees
everywhere. Kurtz has "kicked himself loose from the earth." "He owes no
allegiance to anything except those animal powers, those various lusts,
those unpermitted aspirations lurking in the darkness of his inner station.
Marlow also responds to these dark callings, and he almost becomes their
captive. He confuses the beat of the drum (the call to man's primitive
side) with his own heartbeat, and is pleased. Yet he does not slip over
the edge as Kurtz does. Marlow keeps to the track. When he is confronted
with the ultimate evil where a man "must fall back on (his) own innate
strength, upon (his) own capacity for faithfulness," he is able to do so,
he shows the necessary ...

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Two Themes That Affect Marlow And Kurtz In Heart Of Darkness. (2007, March 25). Retrieved February 10, 2026, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Two-Themes-Affect-Marlow-Kurtz-Heart/62352

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"Two Themes That Affect Marlow And Kurtz In Heart Of Darkness." Essayworld.com. March 25, 2007. Accessed February 10, 2026. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Two-Themes-Affect-Marlow-Kurtz-Heart/62352.

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 3/25/2007 10:16:30 PM
Category: Book Reports
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 777
Pages: 3

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