Heart of Darkness Part 2

One night while lying on his steamboat, Marlow hears the manager and his uncle talking about "that man", being Krutz, and how they disapprove of him. Soon Marlow is able to start up the river toward a sickly Krutz, who Marlow was to pick up and return. Marlow describs how "the earth seemed unearthly" as they moved deeper in the jungle. Fifty miles into the journey they find an abandoned hut, a pile of wood, and a note reading "Wood for you. Hurry up. Approach cautiously." In the hut Marlow finds a book entitled "An Inquiry into some Points of Seamanship" and he pockets it. One day they are forced to stop due to horrific fog right after they had heard a loud cry leaving them all frightened. Marlow describes the native cannibals they had working for them and wonders at their restraint in not eating the pilgrims. Shortly after the fog lifts they are attacked from the banks. The pilgrims fire their guns, but what scares the attackers away is Marlow blowing the steam engine horn. In the attack Marlow's helmsman is shot and killed. They suspected this means Krutz is already dead, but he is not. Upon arrival at the station, Marlow meets a Russian who adores Krutz and thinks he does no wrong, despite the fact he has tried to kill the Russian before. This Russian was the owner of the abandoned cabin and the book Marlow has. The Russian informs Marlow that Krutz ordered the attack on the steamer because he doesn't want to leave. He makes Marlow promise not to ruin Krutz's reputation when he returned to civilization. Through him Marlow finds out that the natives don't want Krutz to leave. He has became apart of their culture and customs. The night before they depart Krutz tries to run away to the natives, but Marlow stops him. When they leave the next day all the natives come out, but Marlow scares them all away with the horn except for the "barbarous and superb woman." Krutz grows weaker and weaker. He sums up his life in "The horror! The horror!" and dies. Marlow kept some letters Krutz had given him for keeping from the company workers and press, but he takes it to Krutz's fiance. Marlow lies to her saying that Krutz's last words were her name.
While I was extremely relieved to finished this book I did enjoy it, in a bored way. The end was definitely better than the beginning. I had a hard time summarizing the end. There is a little more action than the beginning but it's the conversations that carry the theme of the story and it's hard to summarize them. I definitely won't have any trouble listing examples of the author's style for this major work file. My two favorite are probably his use of capitalization and repetition. I liked the echoing of the title in the last line, "seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness." While Conrad never gives the narrator a voiced opinion, the reader can get a sense of what he is feeling just from his very limited comments. When the helmsman died was really sad. Right before it was a peak of action for a very slow moving book, and then it suddenly seems to stop with his death. The Russian was highly annoying. His conversations with Marlow, however, are some of the most important in the book. I can't tell if I would have liked Krutz before he traveled to the heart of darkness. I know it was made worse be the jungle, but I believe he was arrogant even before he entered Africa. I get this from his fiance. She never saw him deep in Africa, yet she has the same adimiration for him that the Russian did. The way Marlow describes Krutz's voice is captivating. The way Conrad writes makes the reader hear Krutz's lines in that powerful and authoritative voice. Marlow's visit with Krutz's fiance at the end was enlightening. It made me believe that the heart of darkness didn't reliease anything that was not already in a man. While Krutz was driven near crazy in the jungle, his fiance describes him in a way that shows he always had the same characteristics. They were just more pronounced and crude in Africa. However, Marlow did lie to protect him and seemed to understand that something had happened to him out there. He must have felt that he hadn't been a bad man before he went. I'm not having an easy time saying what I'm trying to. I hope you are able to get the point.