Here's my response to Kurtz's words, "The horror! The horror!". I didn't write about what I said in class today...I didn't exactly have that opinion or think about that when writing...
“The horror! The horror!”
“The horror! The horror!” is the last phrase uttered by Kurtz before he dies. There can, of course, be several interpretations for why Kurtz says this before he dies. First, it could be that he senses his death approaching quite fast, and he says “The horror! The horror!” because he doesn’t want to die (which would be an obvious reason), or because he thinks of his life, how he went about his business, and he knows he’s being punished for havoc he caused in the
Secondly, this phrase could be a way to warn Marlow about what he has yet to experience: life after the
I know we started talking about the meaning of "The horror! The horror!" in class, but there were a few things Marlow said after hearing these last words that I thought would be interesting to look at, as he himself struggles to define their meaning.
ReplyDeleteOn page 87, Marlow speaks of Kurtz as "the remarkable man who had pronounced a judgment upon the adventures of his soul on this earth." Furthermore, on page 88 Marlow says "he was piercing enough to penetrate all the hearts that beat in the darkness. He had summed up-he had judged. 'The horror!'. After all, this was the expression of some sort of belief, it had a vibrating note of revolt in its whisper, it had the appalling face of a glimpsed truth-the strange commingling of desire and hate." Putting Marlow's thoughts together makes me lean towards the interpretation of Kurtz's last words as a realization of what he has become through his journey.
Nevertheless, Marlow's second quote brings up not only Kurtz's journey, but the journey of "all the hearts that beat in the darkness"; his last words become more general, envelop all the souls held in Africa, just like his quality of taking people in (according to his Intended). Therefore, in a bit of a different interpretation, Kurtz's last words are a judgment about the horror that is present in Africa related to colonization. He comes to this realization and final judgment through his own journey: he is "revolted", disgusted by what the mingling of his desire (for money for his Intended's family's approval) and of hate of what his situation has turned him into. Because of this mingling of hate and desire he has become a true Western colonizer--not there for good intentions, but for the ivory. This mingling made him a weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly.
Therefore, I think that Kurtz's last words are his realization of the horror present in Africa, his disgust for what he has done, become, and what will still be done after his death: colonization. Later, on page 88, Marlow claims that Kurtz'z cry was "an affirmation, a moral victory paid for by abominable terrors, by abominable satisfactions. But it was a victory!"I think his last words can be characterized as a moral victory because Kurtz has redeemed himself in a way: just like in a tragedy, he has gone through anagnorisis at the end of his downfall.
And so, the confusion about Kurtz's last words come back: it was a whisper full of revolt, but was also a victory --were they a cry of disgust or of fascination of the abomination?
Claire gives us here a really complete interpretation of Kurtz's last words. Many sides are taken into account, and i agree with her (along with the insightful interpretations that she expresses) when considering the ambiguity that never fails to surround those four words. Are they disgust or fascination? Only personal, a realization on that man's life, or directed towards every "heart of darkness" beating in the world?
ReplyDeleteIndeed, Conrad leaves us with this statement in a state of mystery, never expressively stating what it could mean. This lack of factual explanation reflects those words' purpose for the reader: they are free to be interpreted according to each and every reader. The list can go on and on. And that is what makes it, in a sense, a victory. He managed to find the words that would never stop perplexing readers, that could be applied to any kind of personal interpretation, that have a meaning for each and every one. Indeed, even Marlow interprets them the way he sees them to be. They are a general statement on the darkness present in our lives, or in what we perceive in the world surrounding us. The ambiguity we are faced with when trying to analyze these words will thus always remain, because each of our perceptions is different, and because of the practically infinite spectrum of possibilities which these words can be applied to, both within the work itself and in the world.