Heart Of Darkness

Throughout the Heart of Darkness, Marlow witnesses the hopelessness of the natives there (Ford, Par 3). He sees the corruption within the ivory dealers and Kurtz, the leader of the ivory exporting company. In all that Marlow saw, he saw in everything, the greed and the salvation of humankind.

Marlow is initially quite enthralled to have his new job and about traveling into the jungle to meet the mysterious Kurtz. But the greed of the "pilgrims" (Conrad pg. 22), or his coworkers, soon becomes visible to Marlow. The crisis in almost every one of Conrad's novels arrives "by a statue of accident" (Ford, Par 1), when Marlow finds himself abruptly committed to his destiny. He starts believe that Kurtz the ivory dealer is the beacon of salvation within the fog of avarice and death in the jungle.

Once arriving in the "Darkness" (Conrad, pg. 3), or the jungle, Marlow sees that the jungle had consumed Kurtz's heart completely, as Kurtz believes that he is some sort of god. The author of an abstract discerningly talks about Kurtz's behavior, "I imagine that few men have had much more power to see vividly, the opposing sides of human character" (Swinnerton, par. 8). Another critic talks about Marlow's faith in the good of man, because although everyone in the jungle including Kurtz's workers perceive him as a tyrant, Marlow sees a genius in the dictator.

Greed is a universally portrayed trait by just about all the characters in the novel. This following quote vividly describes effect greed has had on the workers.

"The word 'ivory' rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed. You would think they were praying to it. A taint of imbecile rapacity blew through it all, like a whiff from some corpse. By Jove! I've never seen anything so unreal in my life. And outside, the silent wilderness surrounding this cleared speck on the earth struck me as something great and invincible, like evil or truth, waiting patiently