An Analysis of Conrad's "Heart of Darkness"

Joseph Conrad, in his long-short story, "Heart of Darkness," tells the tale of two mens' realization of the hidden, dark, evil side of themselves. Marlow, the "second" narrator of the framed narrative, embarked upon a spiritual adventure on which he witnessed firsthand the wicked potential in everyone. On his journey into the dark, forbidden Congo, the "heart of darkness," so to speak, Marlow encountered Kurtz, a "remarkable man" and "universal genius," who had made himself …

…of its horror. As Marlow found himself looking into the abyss, he was able to turn back, and reject his own potential to become what Kurtz had become. As he judge Kurtz's proclamation of; horror to be a kind of "affirmation," a "sort of belief" expressed with a terrible candor and "vibrating" with a "note of revolt," so we might judge Marlow's expression of his indignation and contempt to be a kind of moral heroism.