Kurtz's fall in Heart of Darkness

Kurtz is one of the representatives of European values. He is a petty tyrant, a dying god, an embodiment of Europe. He has been presented as a funneling character Marlow. His ambition is also traveling Africa, but though Kurtz managed to reach his inner within like as Marlow, he fails at last because he cannot come out of it.

His downfall seems to be a result of his willingness to ignore the hypocritical rules that govern European colonial conduct. Like Marlow, Kurtz also wished to travel to Africa in search of adventure specially to complete great acts of humanizing, improving, and instructing. Once he tested the power that could be in the jungle, however, Kurtz abandoned his philanthropic idea and set himself up as a god to natives at the inner station. While he used to worry about the best ways to bring the light of civilization to the Congo, he dies as a man believing that the company should simply "Exterminate all the brutes."

Kurtz's language is modeled with the colonial motif of Europeans behave. His ways of behaving, a concept all are formed inside the Marlow's designation. His fall is one of the crucial points which proves inability to catch his within. He used to say that he will take light in the darkened African land. But after all what he really did is exploitation of African people in the field of economy, society, relation, policies, etc. He affected to almost all aspects of African society. But when he died, he spoke the sentence "Exterminate all the brutes" as a request to his company. Marlow remarks that all Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz. The very existence of Kurtz also proves that these very remarks as true. Kurtz is completely open about his lust. He is the man of many lusts.

When Kurtz's dies Marlow learns about the inner Salvation. Kurtz's death has been presented as Marlow's salvation in the novel. Kurtz’s fall is the result of the colonial conduct of European society. He is a made up man. His mentality has been influenced or imposed with the colonial motive of European conduct, but he doesn't know all these reality. He only thinks about his intention, positions and superiority in different levels. But it is very interesting that Kurtz having the heart of darkness tries to exterminate so called another kind of darkness.

In this way Kurtz is a kind of blind- folded man with the colonial motive of European conduct. He himself has so many lusts. He achieves power, joy, labor all these things, but his fall is in that situation in which he himself is not known about what actually darkness is and who has possessed the real darkness. His fall has been shown without any kind of realization. What he did before his fall is only served the holistic European colonial motive designed by Marlow and at last he is presented as the scapegoat of his lusts in different fields which was designed by European colonial conduct.

In Heart of Darkness Kurtz is equated with European and his fall is linked with the fall of European civilization. The principal cause of Kurtz’s fall is his lack of moral restraint. His fall is the fall of rational power when it stands face to face with the fascinating savagery. His fall suggests that a civilized man is hollow at the core. According to Conrad, however civilized we might be a primitive savage self is deeply hidden within us. If we don’t act in keeping with the virtue of moral restraint, this primitive demon comes out from its prison and renders our lives hollow and brutal. Kurtz's fall is the fall of the civilized self in an atmosphere of freewheeling subconscious life.