Kurtz (Heart of Darkness)
Encyclopedia
Mr. Kurtz is a central fictional character
in Joseph Conrad
's novella Heart of Darkness
. A trader of ivory
in Africa
and commander of a trading post, he monopolises his position as a demigod
among native Africans. Kurtz meets with the protagonist
, Marlow, who returns him to the coast via steamboat
. Kurtz, whose reputation precedes him, impresses Marlow strongly, and during the return journey Marlow is witness to Kurtz's final moments.
The character of Kurtz has been open to literary discussion since Heart of Darkness was published in 1902. It was the direct inspiration for the Kurtz character
in Francis Ford Coppola
's 1979 Vietnam War
film Apocalypse Now
, itself based on the novella.
trader, sent by a shadowy Belgian company into the heart of the Congo Free State
. With the help of his superior technology, Kurtz has turned himself into a charisma
tic demigod of all the tribes surrounding his station, and gathered vast quantities of ivory in this way. As a result, his name is known throughout the region. The general manager of the company's Congo operation is jealous of Kurtz, and plots his downfall.
His mother was half-English, his father was half-French and thus "All Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz.” As the reader finds out at the end, Kurtz is a multitalented man–painter, musician, writer, promising politician (ironically enough, an extremist
). He starts out, years before the novella begins, as an imperialist
in the best tradition of the "white man's burden". The reader is introduced to a painting of Kurtz's, depicting a blindfolded woman bearing a torch against a nearly black background, and clearly symbolic of his former views. Kurtz is also the author of a "pamphlet" regarding the civilization of the natives. However, over the course of his stay in Africa, he becomes corrupted. He takes his pamphlet and scribbles in, at the very end, the words "Exterminate all the brutes!" He induces the natives to worship him, setting up rituals and venerations worthy of a tyrant
. By the time Marlow, the protagonist, sees Kurtz, he is ill with "jungle fever" and almost dead. Marlow seizes Kurtz and endeavors to take him back down the river in his steamboat. Kurtz dies on the boat with the last words, "The horror! The horror!"
heroes whose suppressed or sublimated desires lead them to a fractured psyche. Victor Frankenstein
in Frankenstein
, and Prometheus
in Prometheus Unbound, as well as the central figure of Edgar Allan Poe
's "William Wilson
" all ended up displacing their evil into other creatures. Besides these, the character of Kurtz does not resist a Nietzschean interpretation, being a sort of Übermensch
whose fractured persona resembles a kind of Dionysian genius, fully aware of his desire for sex and utter solitude.
Francis Ford Coppola
's 1979 Vietnam War
film, Apocalypse Now
, centers on the protagonist's mission to find and kill a particular Colonel Kurtz, based on Conrad's character, who has gone rogue far up a river, deep in the Southeast Asian jungle. The cast of the film were instructed by Coppola to read Heart of Darkness.
Timothy Findley
's 1993 novel, Headhunter, features Kurtz's escape from Heart of Darkness and subsequent reign of terror over the city of Toronto
as the psychiatrist-in-chief at the Parkin Institute.
Cathy Nolan's novel, Staff, centers on the protagonist, a female version of Kurtz (named Judith), and her attempt as a supposed demigod
to corrupt children. She does this by slowly crushing the spirits out of them by being unbelievably passive-aggressive, yet without attracting the attention of adults. The novel is reminiscient of Peter in Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game
.
The Russian claims that Kurtz has "enlarged [his] mind". This may be a nod to Tocqueville's Democracy in America
where in Vol. 3 Chapter 22 Tocqueville refers to war as always "enlarging the mind of a people".
In 1991 Australian Author and Playwrite Larry Buttrose
wrote and staged a theatrical production of "Kurtz" (based on 'Heart of Darkness') with the Crossroads Theatre Company, Sydney. The play is scheduled to be broadcast as a radio play to Australian radio audiences in August 2011 by the Vision Australia Radio
Network,and also by the RPH - Radio Print Handicapped Network
across Australia.
In his history King Leopold's Ghost
, Adam Hochschild
suggests that Leon Rom
was one of the inspirations for the Mr. Kurtz character, citing references as the heads on the stakes outside of the station and other similarities between the two.
Conrad also expressed an admiration of Robert Louis Stevenson
's Pacific writings, in particular the stories The Beach of Falesá
and The Ebb-Tide
, as well as the non-fiction account of Tembinok'
of the Gilbert Islands
that appeared in In the South Seas
. All three texts contain megalomaniacs who manipulate their circumstances and remote settings to assert power over others. It is widely believed that Conrad drew influence from these characters, as well as Stevenson's plot lines, when writing Heart of Darkness
.
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
in Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad was a Polish-born English novelist.Conrad is regarded as one of the great novelists in English, although he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties...
's novella Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness is a novella written by Joseph Conrad. Before its 1903 publication, it appeared as a three-part series in Blackwood's Magazine. It was classified by the Modern Library website editors as one of the "100 best novels" and part of the Western canon.The story centres on Charles...
. A trader of ivory
Ivory trade
The ivory trade is the commercial, often illegal trade in the ivory tusks of the hippopotamus, walrus, narwhal, mammoth, and most commonly, Asian and African elephants....
in Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
and commander of a trading post, he monopolises his position as a demigod
Demigod
The term "demigod" , meaning "half-god", is commonly used to describe mythological figures whose one parent was a god and whose other parent was human; as such, demigods are human-god hybrids...
among native Africans. Kurtz meets with the protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
, Marlow, who returns him to the coast via steamboat
Steamboat
A steamboat or steamship, sometimes called a steamer, is a ship in which the primary method of propulsion is steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels...
. Kurtz, whose reputation precedes him, impresses Marlow strongly, and during the return journey Marlow is witness to Kurtz's final moments.
The character of Kurtz has been open to literary discussion since Heart of Darkness was published in 1902. It was the direct inspiration for the Kurtz character
Walter E. Kurtz
Colonel Walter E. Kurtz is a fictional character and the main antagonist of the 1979 film Apocalypse Now, portrayed by Marlon Brando. Colonel Kurtz is based on the character of a 19th century ivory trader, also called Kurtz, from the novella Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.-Biography:Walter...
in Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...
's 1979 Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
film Apocalypse Now
Apocalypse Now
Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American war film set during the Vietnam War, produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The central character is US Army special operations officer Captain Benjamin L. Willard , of MACV-SOG, an assassin sent to kill the renegade and presumed insane Special Forces...
, itself based on the novella.
In the Novella
Kurtz is an ivoryIvory
Ivory is a term for dentine, which constitutes the bulk of the teeth and tusks of animals, when used as a material for art or manufacturing. Ivory has been important since ancient times for making a range of items, from ivory carvings to false teeth, fans, dominoes, joint tubes, piano keys and...
trader, sent by a shadowy Belgian company into the heart of the Congo Free State
Congo Free State
The Congo Free State was a large area in Central Africa which was privately controlled by Leopold II, King of the Belgians. Its origins lay in Leopold's attracting scientific, and humanitarian backing for a non-governmental organization, the Association internationale africaine...
. With the help of his superior technology, Kurtz has turned himself into a charisma
Charisma
The term charisma has two senses: 1) compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others, 2) a divinely conferred power or talent. For some theological usages the term is rendered charism, with a meaning the same as sense 2...
tic demigod of all the tribes surrounding his station, and gathered vast quantities of ivory in this way. As a result, his name is known throughout the region. The general manager of the company's Congo operation is jealous of Kurtz, and plots his downfall.
His mother was half-English, his father was half-French and thus "All Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz.” As the reader finds out at the end, Kurtz is a multitalented man–painter, musician, writer, promising politician (ironically enough, an extremist
Extremism
Extremism is any ideology or political act far outside the perceived political center of a society; or otherwise claimed to violate common moral standards...
). He starts out, years before the novella begins, as an imperialist
Imperialism
Imperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...
in the best tradition of the "white man's burden". The reader is introduced to a painting of Kurtz's, depicting a blindfolded woman bearing a torch against a nearly black background, and clearly symbolic of his former views. Kurtz is also the author of a "pamphlet" regarding the civilization of the natives. However, over the course of his stay in Africa, he becomes corrupted. He takes his pamphlet and scribbles in, at the very end, the words "Exterminate all the brutes!" He induces the natives to worship him, setting up rituals and venerations worthy of a tyrant
Tyrant
A tyrant was originally one who illegally seized and controlled a governmental power in a polis. Tyrants were a group of individuals who took over many Greek poleis during the uprising of the middle classes in the sixth and seventh centuries BC, ousting the aristocratic governments.Plato and...
. By the time Marlow, the protagonist, sees Kurtz, he is ill with "jungle fever" and almost dead. Marlow seizes Kurtz and endeavors to take him back down the river in his steamboat. Kurtz dies on the boat with the last words, "The horror! The horror!"
Interpretations
Kurtz belongs to a series of RomanticRomanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
heroes whose suppressed or sublimated desires lead them to a fractured psyche. Victor Frankenstein
Victor Frankenstein
Victor Frankenstein was born in Napoli, is a Swiss fictional character and the protagonist of the 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, written by Mary Shelley...
in Frankenstein
Frankenstein
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel about a failed experiment that produced a monster, written by Mary Shelley, with inserts of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first...
, and Prometheus
Prometheus
In Greek mythology, Prometheus is a Titan, the son of Iapetus and Themis, and brother to Atlas, Epimetheus and Menoetius. He was a champion of mankind, known for his wily intelligence, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals...
in Prometheus Unbound, as well as the central figure of Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
's "William Wilson
William Wilson (short story)
"William Wilson" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1839, with a setting inspired by Poe's formative years outside of London. The tale follows the theme of the doppelgänger and is written in a style based on rationality...
" all ended up displacing their evil into other creatures. Besides these, the character of Kurtz does not resist a Nietzschean interpretation, being a sort of Übermensch
Übermensch
The Übermensch is a concept in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche posited the Übermensch as a goal for humanity to set for itself in his 1883 book Thus Spoke Zarathustra ....
whose fractured persona resembles a kind of Dionysian genius, fully aware of his desire for sex and utter solitude.
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...
's 1979 Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
film, Apocalypse Now
Apocalypse Now
Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American war film set during the Vietnam War, produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The central character is US Army special operations officer Captain Benjamin L. Willard , of MACV-SOG, an assassin sent to kill the renegade and presumed insane Special Forces...
, centers on the protagonist's mission to find and kill a particular Colonel Kurtz, based on Conrad's character, who has gone rogue far up a river, deep in the Southeast Asian jungle. The cast of the film were instructed by Coppola to read Heart of Darkness.
Timothy Findley
Timothy Findley
Timothy Irving Frederick Findley, OC, O.Ont was a Canadian novelist and playwright. He was also informally known by the nickname Tiff or Tiffy, an acronym of his initials.-Biography:...
's 1993 novel, Headhunter, features Kurtz's escape from Heart of Darkness and subsequent reign of terror over the city of Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
as the psychiatrist-in-chief at the Parkin Institute.
Cathy Nolan's novel, Staff, centers on the protagonist, a female version of Kurtz (named Judith), and her attempt as a supposed demigod
Demigod
The term "demigod" , meaning "half-god", is commonly used to describe mythological figures whose one parent was a god and whose other parent was human; as such, demigods are human-god hybrids...
to corrupt children. She does this by slowly crushing the spirits out of them by being unbelievably passive-aggressive, yet without attracting the attention of adults. The novel is reminiscient of Peter in Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game
Ender's Game
Ender's Game is a science fiction novel by American author Orson Scott Card. The book originated as the short story "Ender's Game", published in the August 1977 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact. Elaborating on characters and plot lines depicted in the novel, Card later wrote additional...
.
The Russian claims that Kurtz has "enlarged [his] mind". This may be a nod to Tocqueville's Democracy in America
Democracy in America
De la démocratie en Amérique is a classic French text by Alexis de Tocqueville. A "literal" translation of its title is Of Democracy in America, but the usual translation of the title is simply Democracy in America...
where in Vol. 3 Chapter 22 Tocqueville refers to war as always "enlarging the mind of a people".
In 1991 Australian Author and Playwrite Larry Buttrose
Larry Buttrose
Larry Philip Buttrose is an Australian writer. He is the author of the novels The Maze of the Muse and Sweet Sentence, and the travel books The King Neptune Day & Night Club, and Cafe Royale...
wrote and staged a theatrical production of "Kurtz" (based on 'Heart of Darkness') with the Crossroads Theatre Company, Sydney. The play is scheduled to be broadcast as a radio play to Australian radio audiences in August 2011 by the Vision Australia Radio
Vision Australia Radio
Vision Australia Radio is a network of eight radio stations in Victoria and southern New South Wales owned by Vision Australia. The stations broadcast a range of programs, generally consisting of readings of newspapers and magazines for people unable to read print media...
Network,and also by the RPH - Radio Print Handicapped Network
Radio Print Handicapped Network
RPH Australia is the national peak representative organisaion for a unique Australian network of radio reading service designed to meet the daily information needs of people who, for any reason, are unable to access normal printed material...
across Australia.
Basis
Georges Antoine Klein may have been the real-life individual upon whom Joseph Conrad based the character Kurtz. (The name Klein means 'small' in German, while Kurtz means 'short') Klein was an employee of the Brussels-based trading company Société Anonyme Belge pour le Commerce du Haut-Congo, and died shortly after being picked up on the steamboat Conrad was piloting. He is buried in Tchumbiri on the Congo.In his history King Leopold's Ghost
King Leopold's Ghost
King Leopold's Ghost is a best-selling popular history book by Adam Hochschild that explores the exploitation of the Congo Free State by King Leopold II of Belgium between 1885 and 1908....
, Adam Hochschild
Adam Hochschild
Adam Hochschild is an American author and journalist.-Biography:Hochschild was born in New York City. As a college student, he spent a summer working on an anti-government newspaper in South Africa and subsequently worked briefly as a civil rights worker in Mississippi in 1964...
suggests that Leon Rom
Leon Rom
Leon Rom was a Belgian soldier who became the district commissioner of Matadi in the Congo Free State, and later head of the Force Publique army....
was one of the inspirations for the Mr. Kurtz character, citing references as the heads on the stakes outside of the station and other similarities between the two.
Conrad also expressed an admiration of Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....
's Pacific writings, in particular the stories The Beach of Falesá
The Beach of Falesá
"The Beach of Falesá" is a short story by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. It was first published in the Illustrated London News in 1892, and later published in book form in the short-story collection Island Nights' Entertainments...
and The Ebb-Tide
The Ebb-Tide
The Ebb-Tide. A Trio and a Quartette is a short novel written by Robert Louis Stevenson and his stepson Lloyd Osbourne. It was published the same year Stevenson died.-Plot:...
, as well as the non-fiction account of Tembinok'
Tembinok'
Tembinok’, or Tem Binoka, was the ruler of Abemama, Aranuka and Kuria, in the Gilbert Islands, during the late 19th century. Tembinok’'s grandfather, Teñkoruti , was the ruler of a village on Abemama, which was then experiencing devastating feuds...
of the Gilbert Islands
Gilbert Islands
The Gilbert Islands are a chain of sixteen atolls and coral islands in the Pacific Ocean. They are the main part of Republic of Kiribati and include Tarawa, the site of the country's capital and residence of almost half of the population.-Geography:The atolls and islands of the Gilbert Islands...
that appeared in In the South Seas
In the South Seas
This page discusses the 1973 Canadian television series. For the posthumous book of Robert Louis Stevenson titled In the South Seas, see Robert Louis Stevenson....
. All three texts contain megalomaniacs who manipulate their circumstances and remote settings to assert power over others. It is widely believed that Conrad drew influence from these characters, as well as Stevenson's plot lines, when writing Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness is a novella written by Joseph Conrad. Before its 1903 publication, it appeared as a three-part series in Blackwood's Magazine. It was classified by the Modern Library website editors as one of the "100 best novels" and part of the Western canon.The story centres on Charles...
.