Read Part III, paragraph 9 beginning with the line "The manager came out". . . through "I turned to Kurtz for relief--positively for relief."
Why does Marlow turn to Kurtz for relief? What about the atmosphere is so vile that it chokes Marlow, and -- again -- why would he turn to Kurtz, of all people, for relief?
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Marlow turns to Kurtz for relief because the manager had been talking negatively about Kurtz, and Marlow still held high opinions of him. He turns to Kurtz, it seems because he almost wants Kurtz to rise from the dead and prove the manager wrong. Also everything that Marlow and Kurtz had worked for (their 'idea' described in part I, the one that consumes your life) would be ending with Kurtz's death; something Marlow couldn't handle.
Marlow would turn to Kurtz because through all of his faults, Kurtz was a beacon to the rest of the people. He was seduced by the dark and became someone horrible, but he began as one of the virtuous leaders into Africa. Marlow, who believes it's necessary to have an idea so strong it consumes your soul, admired the ideals Kurtz went to the Congo with. He sees Kurtz as a glimmer of hope of what could be.
I agree. The manager is everything Marlow hates about the Belgian Congo. Kurtz has something more... something so much deeper than Ivory. Or at least Kurtz had something more than Ivory.
Ivory has consumed the souls of the pilgrims. It gives them meaning, holds the purpose to their existences, and Marlow 'turns' to Kurtz for relief from the pilgrims' single minded, materialistic pretense.
Kurtz gives the Congo life - or in his once eloquent state of mind: He gave it Purpose - in the civilized use of the term. He wished to give the Congo a torch of 'that sacred fire' to guide their way to CIVILIZATION while the pilgrims, and their manager gave the Africans merely a match stick - blown out and smothered. Marlow does not want to be a part of the pilgrimage, he does not want to hear anymore of the pretense, the ivory, the futility in the face of an immense enslaved humanity. It's a horror. The manager, the pilgrims are all horrible, hollow hearts of darkness. The humanity!
I mostly agree with what Natalie and Erik said.
Marlow turns to Kurtz for relief because Kurtz is the only one in the Congo who (although he's running after ivory) is trying to achieve a vision for the Congo. Kurtz's eloquent ideals provide relief from the futility and baseness of the manager and his petty problems, as well as from the darkness of the jungle. The manager talks about "unsound methods" and reporting it "in the proper quarter" and to Marlow, these things seem pointless, false, and tiny in the great vastness of the Congo. He can remember Kurtz' words about the better ideals of each station being a "beacon of hope," and moving to this higher moral plane gives Marlow relief.
I think Marlow felt the atmosphere was so vile because he ended up in a situation of lies and futility again. Marlow tells the manager "the brickmaker will make a readable report for you," because he remembers his earlier conversation with the brickmaker who'd told him about Kurtz (Paragraph 59, Part 2 ?) and who gave him a false position of authority because of the pretence Marlow kept up about his own importance in the Company. By mentioning the "report" the bricklayer can make for the manager, Marlow sounds as though he knows all about it. He's again under false pretences and lies, something that he despises, and this makes the atmosphere so vile to him. Sorry, I know that was somewhat confusing, but I hope it made sense (?)
I agree with Natalie. Kurtz, before consumed and seduced by the Congo, was an "eloquent" man. He was the model adventurer and like Natalie said, a "one of the virtuous leaders of Africa." Nobody desires to see their leaders fail and seem "immortal." He was the symbol-- as far as Europe was concerned-- of a man who carried out the "idea" that they so intently believed in. The only "idea" that made their endeavors justified. Marlow despised the manager because of the attitude he had towards Kurtz and what he desired to do to him. The manager was prepared to go as far as to hang Kurtz. In Marlow's view, if Kurtz dies, the "idea" dies, and if the idea dies, then civilization has failed.
I'm re-reading the book right now, and I'm still not getting what Kurtz means. I get the whole he's a 'symbol, beacon, idea, hope' thing but it seems like there's something else.
Before Marlow meets him, he speaks of Kurtz like he's God, citing his powerful, bweildering, and illuminating voice. I imagine that's what God's is like. Then when he meets Kurtz he has a moment where he almost wants to kill him. Is it that he wants to destroy something beautiful? His inner darkness coming out?
And then when he goes and talks to Kurtz's fiancee, he almost dies a little ("my heart stood still,stopped dead short" last page of the book)
Is it that Kurtz represents the hope of goodness in life? And that since he succumbed to such a demonic force and became worst than the rest, Marlow wanted to kill him? Or does Kurtz represent the terrifying idea of a saint becoming a sinner?
That's probably a whole lot to answer...I'm just really confused.
Kurtz may be referred as "hollow", but his intelligence and great plans bring some hope to Marlow. I agree with Natalie about how Kurtz was seduced by the darkness, but it was because his ideas and plans for Africa had overwhelmed him so much that it consumed his soul.
Kurtz may have given the Congo a "purpose", but in reality the civilizing and manufacturing of the ivory had only destroyed the Natives culture and way of life. This darkness has caused the air to be "polluted" by the white men and their ideals, which Marlow feels suffocated by. They will continue to manifest Africa and Marlow knows that he and anyone else cannot stop their power hungry quest.
Alex, civilization has failed.
Natalie, I've also been sensing the godlike descriptions Marlow has given Kurtz. Kurtz is the only righteous reason Marlow has to head down the river. It's almost like an excuse. Marlow's last attempt at trying to justify his being there in the middle of the horror. When Marlow realizes that Kurtz has been completely consumed by Darkness he loses that 'idea,' that justification for working for the pilgrims.
Kurtz is one of Marlow's main motivations throughout the entire novelette. Marlow's desire to find him was what drove him to persistently continue his journey. I think that he got into the habit of turning to this ideal man for relief, comfort and reassurance. Because he was out there with nothing else to keep him hopeful, he used Kurtz as a kind of deity or a belief to keep him going. Even before he met him, he was traveling down the river, thinking about this seemingly respectable man. Marlow gained such a strong admiration for the man, even though all his preconceived notions were based solely on stories. Even after he actually interacts with Kurtz and realizes his flaws, Marlow still respects him and feels the need to stand up for him in front of the manager. I agree with what Alex said about the fact that Marlow saw Kurtz's death as a symbol of that "idea" dying, and the fact that the death of the idea would bring great sense of failure to everyone who supported Kurtz.
I think Marlow saw Kurtz as sort of the "easy way out". To stand up against Kurtz or say that he is dead, that is that his morals, beliefs, standards are dead, would be to give up hope. Kurtz came with the best intentions and sort of embodies shattered hope. A dream that was consumed and destroyed by the darkness and evil. To turn to Kurtz, to stay on his side is to cling to an idea and to not accept that it is lost. For Marlow, in that vile place he needed that hope. Kurtz was relief because he was something to believe in. He goes on to say at the end of the paragraph, "I was unsound..but it was something to have at least a choice of nightmares." So even though Marlow knew he wasn't someone that should be believed in anymore, when the choice was abandon all hope or believe in something not necessarily right, he chose the latter.
I agree with the comments above me. Marlow is disgusted by the Belgian Congo, and the manager personifies all that the operation stood for. Marlow has realized at this time that the operations in the Congo are not as good as they seem to be, and he may be upset by the manager's attitude in the passage.
Additionally, the manager seems to only be interested in ivory. While that was one of the main goals of the operation, this mindset bothered Marlow. At this point, he turns to Kurtz. While Kurtz is not the best man, he is the holder of the "idea." If Kurtz dies, then the "idea" dies as well. It is for this reason that Marlow turned mentally to Kurtz in this situation.
Oh, another thing to the people who comment after me. This passage is actually in paragraph 19, not paragraph 9.
WOW! Natalie and Erik are fiends for posting twice!
I think that Sharon brings up a really good point. Throughout the entire book, the only real interaction with Kurtz takes place in just a small chunk of it- at the end. Yet, the reader is still familiar with Kurtz because he is constantly being spoken of by Marlow. Kurtz is what kept Marlow moving, kept him together in this whole experience called the Congo. And when Marlow begins to see Kurtz in such a vulnerable state, it scares him into thinking that all of Kurtz’s admirations, ideals, and goals just proved to be a lost cause.
And I liked the first line of Erik’s second comment.
I think most of the posts above mine have basically stated the main reason as to why Marlow would seek relief in Kurtz. In a place as wild and chaotic as the Congo, Marlow needs an outlet of stability and truth. In Kurtz, Marlow is able to find relief because Kurtz differentiates himself from the Europeans greedy for ivory such as the manager.
The atmosphere that is so vile that it chokes Marlow is one reeking of hypocrisy. Most of the white men traveled to Africa in order to "civilize" the natives, or so they say. However, a majority of those men turn into actual savages themselves, only seeking power and fulfilling their own desires. Marlow sees this hypocritical, selfish nature in the manager. However, concerning Kurtz, Marlow holds him in higher regards, because Kurtz, like many of you have said, is the hope and "beacon of light" for actual civilization. Kurtz entered the Congo with an actual idea and benevolent passion. That is the main reason why Marlow sought out relief in him.
Marlow doesn't like that he was being "lumped along with Kurtz for partisan of methods for which the time was not ripe", but in defending Kurtz as a "remarkable man", he's hanging on to the shred of hope he had in Kurtz's vision for the Congo. Without Kurtz's vision, the whole thing would seem so dark and pointless, because without the hope of seeming like you're doing something worthwhile, the horrors of what they are actually doing becomes more pronounced. Already, Marlow doesn't really like what they are doing in the Congo, but here the manager comes saying that their "method is unsound" and that what they were doing was basically useless. Instead of wanting to actually believe that, Marlow would rather put his hope on Kurtz in his "choice of nightmares".
As the manager comes out from being with Kurtz, you get this extreme feeling of false sincerity, especially with the line where he feels it "was necessary to sigh."
Sharon said that Kurtz was the driving force that compelled him throughout the novella. Kurtz is like an enigma, nothing more than a name bouncing around the darkened, vile heart of the Congo in the early parts of the book. All we really know about him is how this "idea" (which has been brought up numerous times in the entries) has permeated the jungle and it's inhabitants. Kurtz, throughout most of the book, was simply an idea for Marlow--the topic of his meditation. This whole book I think is not trying to describe Kurtz's downfall, but describe how this one influential person mustered up so much confusion in the heart and mind of Marlow. Honestly, I don't think Marlow understands if Kurtz is "evil" or "good," "dark" or "light." It is so ambiguous, he is constantly going back and forth, creating opinion after opinion. This story he is retelling amongst his fellow sailors on the dark ship aims to make some sort of sense of the happenings he experienced and witnessed. Kurt's creates this unexplained curiosity in Marlow. I think this is why he's questioning his own story so much. He is unaware of the fact if he himself is "good" or "evil." He is unsure if the idea which tainted Kurtz in the Jungle has infected himself.
And even after Marlow completes his story, he does not have an answer or complete resolution as to why his desire to understand Kurtz motivations...for he still sat "apart, indistinct and silent, in the pose of a meditating Buddha."
We as readers view kurtz as simply being "evil". But Marlow is blinded by some concealing darkness which hinders his views of the truth. There's so much "darkness" in the book it's hard to determine who/what are the "true" evils. You don't know if it's Kurt'z for creating everything or if it's the manager with his sinister ways and his craving to leech power from Kurtz, etc. It's all very confusing to me...
Marlow never truly finds answers-- neither do we. We are left "meditating" over his own story, just as Marlow continues to do.
I think the “atmosphere so vile” is the way that the manager pretends to be someone of character and knowledge when he is actually just a hollow person. This air of hypocrisy is what choked Marlow.
Unlike the manager, Kurtz is someone full of mystery to Marlow. Everything Marlow knows about Kurtz are from stories told by other people. I think this mysterious aspect of Kurtz attracts Marlow. Kurtz seems to represent the mysterious and powerful jungle that fascinates Marlow. Marlow turns to Kurtz in search for some truth, possibly the survival of a civilized man in the savage land.
I agree with most of the posts above.
Marlow realizes that people are not in the Congo for reasons he went there. They are there for selfish reasons and the manager, as some have said, represents this realization. Marlow turns to Kurtz almost as a weakness. He looks up to Kurtz since Kurtz was/is the 'idea' and always remained different from the Europeans, yet it is clear that he has become vulnerable and more like the Europeans in the Congo.
Marlow turns to Kurts for relief because a need to dispel all things that he was told by the manager. He needed to rid himself of what thoughts got into his head of Kurts by thinking about Kurts.
The jungle itself is a very vile place, but now it's not only attacking them physically, it's gotten into their conversations and has them attacking each other verbally. This also be a reason to turn to Kurts, to look for a drive or motovation to fight the darkness eclipsing the whole of them.
Marlow is guided by very virtuous principles in his motivations. He looks deeper than Kurtz's actions, into what the idealistic man Kurtz was, and his potential to catalyze change. He could see the naive Kurtz entering the Congo with his great expectations, but more importantly as we discussed in class, he wants Kurtz to emancipate himself from what he has become.
He supports Kurtz because he still has that belief in Kurtz. Conrad brings out this interpretation when he adds "positive relief" from Kurtz. It is a plea to bring out this facet of Kurtz character when Marlow says "you will be lost... utterly lost" in chapter 28. Conversly, this idea is reinforced when Kurtz tells Marlow his pensive yearning for his grand plans, that he was on the "threshold of great things." that makes Marlow's "blood run cold."
This idea is in tandem with the entity of the jungle and its mystery. Conrad says that Kurtz's soul had gone mad from its own introspection. He continues in saying that the culture of the Congo, its vices, beguile his soul "past the bounds of permitted aspirations."
It is what I see as an endearing hope in humanity Marlow sees in Kurtz. I think he believes in kurtz past his superficial desires and that's why he looks to Kurtz for relief- and maybe gives a little sympathy to.
I basically agree with what most of you have said. I liked how Alex said that Marlow views Kurtz’s view as the death of the “idea”. To me, I think that’s the only positive feeling I got from Kurtz’s death in this vile setting. The concept of this “idea”, this dim light in the heart of a dark and hollow man, never to be fulfilled and Marlow’s realization of this loss, in a way, a positive thing because he saw past Kurtz’s sins and saw the good man prior to his selling of his soul.
And Natalie, I feel the same way about Kurtz that there are still pieces of him that I can’t quite fit in his character as a whole. Maybe he’s suppose to be like God? Or maybe not? Or maybe he’s something more or less abstract than that? I don’t know…
What Marlow finds most appalling is the lack of purpose around him with the exception of Kurtz. The manager was "confounded" at the thought of a report being sent to him for any such purpose. The manager wants nothing to do with purpose and everything to do with correct method. His disdain for Kurtz' lack of structural method is Marlows ideal. It seems that with methods, we tend to go through the steps just to be done with it. By having purpose however, we do not conform to methods and we are able to have this "idea" of how we want to shape our future.
Something that caught my attention was that "[Marlow] had turned to the wilderness really, not to Mr. Kurtz." It seems that the motives of men are often clouded by desire, and set off course. Whereas the wilderness or perhaps some sort of divine being is something that does not falter and stays true to its purpose. Im pretty sure that Conrad was trying to tie Kurtz and the wilderness together somehow but Im not entirely sure how.
the quote that I used was in paragraph 20 fyi
It seems that everything I was thinking about saying has been already said. Anyways, I think Marlow turns to Kurtz because he is the person who holds some sort of vision for the Congo and like how Niloy mentioned, If Kurtz dies then the idea/vision dies with him. Kurtz stands for an idea that brings relief to Marlow in the mist of the terrors in the Congo.
There are many things that are making the atmosphere vile. The manager embodies many of those things, one of them being greed. Again, as Niloy pointed out, he only wants ivory, reflecting the purpose of the operation. Instead of bringing something to the people of the Congo the Europeans are only taking things from them. The idea does not settle well with Marlow, who finds relief in the idea that Kurtz holds.
I don't know if my versions different, or if it was just a slight misquote, but in my book it says, "I turned mentally to kurtz for relief..." I think that mentally is a key word in analyzing why Marlow would turn to Kurtz for relief. The atmosphere has indeed choked marlow to the point where he is gasping for anything to save him quickly. The first person who he mentally turns to is Kurtz because he had viewed Kurtz has someone who has quick answers for situations. Shortly after this passage Marlow goes on to say, "'I had turned to the wilderness really, not to Mr. Kurtz, who... was as good as buried.'" Here, shortly after he first mentally turns to Kurtz for relief, marlow realizes that Kurtz has merely become a symbol to him that lacks any real foundation, and it is this wilderness that he seeks for relief.
Earlier in the novella we hear multiple times how wonderful Kurtz is at getting his hands on Ivory. In one section it states something like "Kurtz gathered more Ivory alone than all the other men combined". So clearly, the manager had some sort of grudge against Kurtz to be speaking of him so poorly.
Why then does Marlow "[turn] mentally to kurtz"? I think it is simply because for such a long period, Kurtz was almost an idol. To many men in that land he was that "supernatural deity" that he spoke of. Kurtz held a strong belief in something and he pushed for it until the very end. Also, there is simply not any trust in the manager. From the first time we meet him he appears to be deceitful and sneaky. He is ultimately Kurtz enemy of sorts. When you hold some one on a pedestal for so long, you will surely turn to them before you turn to your enemies.
Kurtz is a bastion of everything good. When you are in trouble who would you turn to? Either a hero or a villain, some enigma, not any person that is soon to be forgotten.
The simple fact is that Kurtz remains a marvelous leader in the most simple sense of the word, he leads people, and they follow willingly. The trouble of course is that Kurtz will soon become a leader of things that Marlow doesn't approve of. For Marlow this is a moment in which he finds out that his leadership has weaknesses, Kurtz is there to make up for said weaknesses, and that is why Marlow turns to him.
P.S. Ms. Minor- this blog post is late because my computer wouldn't let me post on Thu./Fri. and I forgot over the weekend, sorry for being late.
I think Marlow turns to Kurtz for relief because Kurtz actually has an objective for the Congo that he seeks to institutionalize. Although he is actually far from being a good thing, Kurtz's ideals provide a valuable contrast to the emotional complications that Marlow faces regarding the vastness of the Congo and are consistent with the use of irony employed routinely by Conrad. Although I agree with much of what is being said by Nick, Alex, Grace, and some other people, I disagree with those of you who consider Kurtz to be hollow. I think in fact that Kurtz is a deep character that is rich with evil qualities if anything or more abstractly he is a manifestation of the metropole's imperialistic viewpoints and thus cannot be hollow. All in all, i found this section very interesting.
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