In the whole of the book, I think Kurtz represents the dark side in our selves that is admiring because our dark side is always in a way thrilling and appealing. There is a certain admiration that people feel for him even when they know he is highly capable of doing dark things. The harlequin is in complete admiration of Kurtz even though he threatened to kill him. Even Marlow who knows what Kurtz is capable of and has no boundaries, still thinks highly of Kurtz. When he talks about the “choice of nightmares” which represents either following the manager and the company or Kurtz, Marlow chooses to follow Kurtz because by choosing Kurtz, Marlow will be able to discover himself in the purpose of his life, just as Kurtz did in the forest since he was shown to be so attached and interdependent of it. Marlow also chooses to keep Kurtz story safe because the story deserves to be told in an honorable way.
In the end, when Marlow meets Kurtz fiancée to present her his letters, she equally shows a strong admiration from Kurtz. We also see that Marlow was indeed affected by Kurtz’s death because he was mad at himself for just having sat there eating while Kurtz was dying in the next cabin. I think when she asks Marlow what his last words, Marlow does not want to tell her the truth about his last words being “The horror! The horror!” and says Kurtz’s last word were her name, because he does not to stop the illusion that Kurtz was this amazing and admirable person. In reality Kurtz was not thinking about his fiancée but rather that he was leaving his home forever and that his home no longer resided in Europe.
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