Best of Week: Heart of Darkness

In my opinion, the most valuable discussion we had this week was when we talked about Mr. Kurtz's death and part three of Heart of Darkness. The discussion about morality really struck me, especially when we talked about efficiency versus morality. In addition, it was really interesting when we talked about Marlow's thoughts about Kurtz's death. On page 70, there was so much irony, because of the way Mr. Kurtz did business immorally, and the treatment of the Africans. Yet, Marlow said that Kurtz had a moral victory. There was even more skepticism because people live morally to gain knowledge while Kurtz found knowledge even though he had extremely immoral actions. This also illustrates the modern ideas in the book, because verbal irony is the language of the modern world as we discussed.

This really made me think deeper in terms of what thoughts Marlow has, and how they can be interpreted to find deeper meaning. Why would he say that Kurtz had a moral victory? What does this say about society? I felt that this discussion really hit the nail on the head because I really understood Marlow's feelings about Kurtz. In addition, after this, in social studies we watched a movie clip from about 1939. It showed Henry Stanley and Livingston in Congo, and how though Livingston was kind to the natives, he treated them like children. On the other hand, Stanley hit the natives and was unbelievably rude and towards them. These discussions really made me think about the difference of morality and immorality, how society interprets them, and what can be gained by living a moral life. Heart of Darkness really illustrates the brutality caused by immorality. It reinforces the importance of morality by seeing the terrible things that happen if people aren't moral.