Second, Marlow’s conversational tone permits Conrad the flexibility to move from the intimacy of a personal account to the intensity of lyric poetry. First, he acts as a persona that allows Conrad to distance himself from the autobiographical element of the text and to give it a shape and a design. Marlow serves two functions in the story. It is the first story in which Conrad draws on his own experience and the first to feature Marlow, the narrator also of Heart of Darkness (1899) and the novels Lord Jim (1900) and Chance (1913). “Youth: A Narrative” marks an important development in the literary career of Joseph Conrad. It seems like the only difference between them is that Kurtz can speak-he can give voice to the horror that both black and white men know.Analysis of Joseph Conrad’s Youth: A Narrative But the helmsman? Marlow tells us that "it looked as though he would put to us some question in an understandable language but he died without uttering a sound" (2.23), although he does frown menacingly. When Kurtz dies, he gives us his famous, "The horror! The horror!" (3.43). These are small and insignificant on their own, but they start to build us a picture for the more important stuff-like this: Marlow says of his dead helmsman that "he had no restraint, no restraint-just like Kurtz-a tree swayed by the wind" (2.30).īut, as with any good foil, the death of the helmsman isn't identical to the death of Kurtz. Marlow throws his shoes overboard just after the death of the helmsman, while he gives away a pair of shoes shortly before the death of Kurtz.Marlow declares that the helmsman would have been fine had he just "left that shutter alone," while Kurtz stares through the very same shutter until he makes a point of telling Marlow to close it.Both men die in the same place on board Marlow's steamship.The helmsman isn't really a foil to Kurtz, but their deaths definitely do share some odd parallels:
Neither guy sees the native Africans as the equals of white men, and Marlow buys in to all the nonsense about "civilizing" them. But this isn't exactly respect as we understand it today. Like Kurtz, Marlow shows a certain amount of respect for the native Africans-admiring their physical strength and sympathizing with their plight, especially at the Outer Station. If he'd stayed in Africa, who's to say that he wouldn't have ended up putting his own native army's heads on sticks? What's the difference? As far as we can tell, only that Marlow actually leaves. The novel depicts Marlow's slow decay and transformation into the corrupted Kurtz, but stops one vital step short: he stays sane.
Marlow and Kurtz go together like peanut butter and jelly-up to a point. Foil Character Role Analysis Kurtz and Marlow
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