Kurtz's Intended: Marlowe's reactions
The whole scene is built through contrasts. While the Intended is all love, delusion and idealism, Marlow knows how far the woman's idea of Kurtz is from fact. Similarly, day and night (light and darkness) meet at that magical moment of the day that is dusk.
As the two characters speak with each other, everything becomes indistincts and the scene ends with a lie.
A few lines later, when the reader is still disturbed by the puzzling meeting, the whole book ends with the word "darkness". The Victorian Age, with all its moral certainties and its respectability, is very far behind Conrad's back.
As the two characters speak with each other, everything becomes indistincts and the scene ends with a lie.
A few lines later, when the reader is still disturbed by the puzzling meeting, the whole book ends with the word "darkness". The Victorian Age, with all its moral certainties and its respectability, is very far behind Conrad's back.
Marlowmy strained ears seemed to hear distinctly (...) the whisper of his condemnation I asked myself what I was doing there. with a sensation of panic in my heart.... ... silencing me into an appalled dumbness. "Yes, I know," I said with something like despair in my heart, but bowing my head before the faith that was in her... "His end," said I with, with dull anger stirring in me, "was in every way worthy of his life." My anger subsided before a feeling of infinite pity. I felt like a chill grip on my chest. "Don't," I said, in a muffled voice. "To the very end," I said, shakily. "I heard his very last words..." I stopped in a fright. |
The fiancéeShe carried her sorrowful head as though she were proud of that sorrow...
She had said... "I have survived." "It was impossible to know him and not to love him. Was it?" She looked at me with intensity. (...) "But you have heard him! You know!" she cried. She said suddenly very low, "He died as he lived" "And I was not with him," she murmured. (...) "He needed me! Me! I would have treasured every sigh, every word, every sign, every glance." "... You were with him - to the last?"... "Repeat them," she said in a heart-broken tone.... |
Heart Of Darkness di L.Bartolotti รจ distribuito con Licenza Creative Commons Attribuzione 4.0 Internazionale.