Marlows Epiphany in Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness :: Heart Darkness essays

Epiphany in Heart of Darkness Marlow, in the brisk The Heart of Darkness, experiences an epiphany, or a dramatic moment in which a character intuitively grasps the essential nature or meaning of slightly situation. The moment in which Marlow experiences his epiphany is right after the helms globe gets killed by natives, which be associated with Kurtz. The thing that Marlow realizes is the savagery of man and the corruption of the drop trade. The actual qualify takes place when Marlow sees the helmsman die. Marlow sees the death take place and is shocked. The side of his notch hit the wheel twice, and the end of what appeared a long cane clattered plump out and knocked over a little campstool. ... my feet felt so very change and wet that I had to look down. ... It was the shaft of a spear that...had caught him in the side just below the ribs. I had to make and effort to bare my eyes from his gaze and attend to the steering. ... I declare it looked as though he would presentl y put to us some question in an understandable language but he died without uttering a sound, without moving a limb, without twitching a muscle. ... He is dead, murmured the fellow, immensely impressed. No doubt about it, said I. When this happened, Marlow effected the savagery of man, horror of death, and the corruption of the ivory trade. He realizes that in the ivory trade, that the ivory is more valuable than human life and that traders will do almost anything to get it. Marlow also realizes mans savagery in the event that man puts greater value on riches than on human life. This is the epiphany of Marlow in The Heart of Darkness. The epiphany of Marlow in The Heart of Darkness has significance in the overall story. The theme of the story is how every man has inside himself a feeling of darkness and that a person, being alienated like Kurtz, will last more savage. Marlow, in his epiphany, realizes the savagery of man and how being alienated from new(a) civilization causes o ne to be savage and raw. This savagery is shown especially in the death of the helmsman, which is where Marlows epiphany takes place, but the savagery is also show in Kurtz. The unite that Kurtz has to the natives and the death of the helmsman is that the natives work for Kurtz.