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

Epiphany in Heart of shabbiness Marlow, in the novel The Heart of Darkness, experiences an epiphany, or a dramatic outcome in which a character intuitively grasps the essential nature or meaning of somewhat situation. The moment in which Marlow experiences his epiphany is right after the steersman gets killed by natives, which are associated with Kurtz. The thing that Marlow realizes is the savageness of man and the corruption of the drop trade. The actual change takes send when Marlow sees the helmsman die. Marlow sees the death take place and is shocked. The side of his head hit the wheel twice, and the end of what appeared a pine cane clattered round and knocked over a little campstool. ... my feet felt so very warm 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 bushel and effort to free my eyes from his gaze and attend to the steering. ... I take it looked as though he would presently 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 well-nigh it, said I. When this happened, Marlow realized 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 liveliness 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 meaning in the overall story. The theme of the story is how every man has indoors himself a heart of darkness and that a person, organism alienated corresponding Kurtz, will become more savage. Marlow, in his epiphany, realizes the savagery of man and how being alienated from modern civilizati on causes one to be savage and raw. This savagery is channelisen especially in the death of the helmsman, which is where Marlows epiphany takes place, but the savagery is also show in Kurtz. The link that Kurtz has to the natives and the death of the helmsman is that the natives work for Kurtz.