Kurtz (Heart of Darkness)

Kurtz is a central fictional character in Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness. A trader of ivory in Africa and commander of a trading post, he monopolises his position as a demigod among native Africans. Kurtz meets with the novella's protagonist, Charles Marlow, who returns him to the coast via steamboat. Kurtz, whose reputation precedes him, impresses Marlow strongly, and during the return journey Marlow is witness to Kurtz's final moments.

Kurtz is an ivory trader, sent by a shadowy Belgian company into the heart of an unnamed place in Africa (generally regarded as the Congo Free State). With the help of his superior technology, Kurtz has turned himself into a charismatic demigod of all the tribes surrounding his station, and gathered vast quantities of ivory in this way. As a result, his name is known throughout the region. Kurtz's general manager is jealous of Kurtz, and plots his downfall.

Kurtz's mother was half English, his father was half French and thus "All Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz.” As the reader finds out at the end, Kurtz is a multitalented man—painter, musician, writer, promising politician. He starts out, years before the novel begins, as an imperialist in the best tradition of the "white man's burden." The reader is introduced to a painting of Kurtz's, depicting a blindfolded woman bearing a torch against a nearly black background, and clearly symbolic of his former views. Kurtz is also the author of a pamphlet regarding the civilization of the natives.

However, over the course of his stay in Africa, Kurtz becomes corrupted. He takes his pamphlet and scribbles in, at the very end, the words "Exterminate all the brutes!" He induces the natives to worship him, setting up rituals and venerations worthy of a tyrant. By the time Marlow, the protagonist, sees Kurtz, he is ill with jungle fever and almost dead. Marlow seizes Kurtz and endeavors to take him back down the river in his steamboat. Kurtz dies on the boat with the last words, "The horror! The horror!"

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