In Heart of Darkness, Marlow, in explaining his motivations for venturing into the Belgian Congo, relies first, almost as a apologies, about the common spirit of adventure shared by readers of childhood adventure novels; he names a “childhood passion for maps”. His desire to travel is born from a desire to discover the unexplored spaces that appear as empty spaces on globes and maps. Africa itself is “the largest, the most pristine” – even though “it has ceased to be an empty space of delicious mystery, it has become a place of darkness” (5). Marlow therefore ventures into Africa not in a stubborn burst of adventure, but under the aegis of a Belgian commercial company. It is under this air of disappointed enthusiasm that we meet the characters who populate the Congo. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Although it should be noted that the country is populated by black people, we are only really introduced to the company's agents , to white Europeans. who are in the country to make profits. Indeed, any other suggestion is almost unreasonable, like Marlow's: "Why come here?" » to one of his comrades is greeted thus “with contempt”: “To make money, of course. What do you think? (17). Yet there is another reason against this, the romantic notion of the colonialist as being "something like an emissary of light, something like a lower sort of apostle" (10), bringer of progress for the Congo while bringing prosperity. return to business. There is a disjunction between this ideal, undoubtedly formulated in religious terms (he later describes his colonialist comrades as "pilgrims", an irony more ironic than that of the missionaries, since the pilgrims are concerned with taking, while the missionaries look at the don) ), and the vehicle that carries it, the one that Marlow approaches straight away, before even having heard of Kurtz. “I dared to suggest,” he told his aunt, “that the business was run for profit” (10). The inviolable pursuit of profit, he suggests, will run counter to the “higher” goals of colonialism. The soldiers and customs workers enter the country with Marlow, no one else. These two value systems will be in contradiction, because one will have to prevail. There is no loyal-to-duty obligation, of the kind that Conrad describes among the sailors in "Well Done," to settle the disputes between these conflicting missions. This struggle is dramatized in the ranks of the men of the company in the Congo. We have noted that one of the ways in which Conrad strives to illuminate moral and psychological truth is through contrasts, through dynamic juxtapositions. The methods of Kurtz, the director of the inner station, with his rhetoric and ideals, and his extravagant success, contrast with the sordid practicality and terrible inefficiency of the director of the central station. Marlow is immediately identified, and almost simultaneously identifies, with Kurtz - which places him in an inevitable positional antagonism with the director of the central station. We must therefore read Marlow's characterization of the manager with regard to this bias. Marlow's description of the central station manager reduces him to a type through its emphasis on his illegibility. It is a challenge that defies the imagination to conceive - a testament to the inability of memory to record the man. As far as complexion, features, mannerisms, voice, build, height are concerned, he is “ordinary”, “ordinary”. This stands in stark contrast to Kurtz, whose entry in the book is anything but mythical: "He was at least seven feet talllong, an animated image of death carved from old ivory” (54-5). Kurtz seems even more imposing in his failing health, if only because he becomes “terrible” (55). An extreme contrast exists between the specter of Kurtz and the solid complacency of the manager. However, the one thing that distinguished him was his gestures, which would later be understood to be as significant as Kurtz's highly dramatic entrance. "There was only an indefinable, faint expression on his lips, something furtive - a smile - not a smile - I remember it, but I cannot explain it. It [made] the sense of the most common phrase absolutely impenetrable"(18). That this inscrutability, this immediate obscuration, is its most distinctive characteristic will appear significant later. Although it is heavier, it will seem to become meaningless in the same way as Kurtz's remarkable speech. It is significant that Marlow does not give the manager a name. By identifying it solely by its position, it empties itself of its personality: it becomes symbolic. It is equivalent to its position. Kurtz, however, refuses to be defined by his station. When Marlow speaks to the manager's "spy," the brick maker, and asks, "Who is this Mr. Kurtz?" the response he receives makes him laugh. He laughs because describing Kurtz as "the head of the inner station" is a tautology that in no way defines a man who lives, it seems, in defiance of the limits that his position should impose. (22) Marlow takes the manager's ouster literally: "Maybe there was nothing in him" (19). But, he continues, it is precisely this emptiness in him that makes him a successful man in the colonial enterprise. Marlow can only attribute his survival to his imperfect humanity, to what he calls his lack of “guts” (19). His actions are therefore depersonalized, devoid of humanism, monstrous in a place where “there were no external controls” (19). Marlow's characterization, already opposed to him, ultimately describes him in terms typical of the other, as ultimately inscrutable: "It was impossible to say what could control such a man" (19). It is this opacity which is the source of its power. These abilities, however, are what allowed him to survive. The tension of colonialism of which Marlow is the ambassador is of a clearly different tenor from that of the manager. “You are part of the new gang,” accuses the brickmaker, “of the gang of virtue” (22). Where does this contempt come from? This is partly due to the fear of losing one's position. But Marlow and Kurtz come from a different background than these inhabitants. Marlow says of the manager: "He was a simple tradesman, employed from his youth in these parts - nothing more" (18). It would not be misleading to describe the director of the central station as some sort of ideal, in the same way that Kurtz is an ideal type. While Kurtz is an outsider - a representative of the best of Europe - the manager is the (almost Darwinian) victor of the political meritocracy of the colonial mission. There is a disturbing specter of unfairness in Kurtz (and in Marlow). interjection into the internal structure of the Coloniale company. Marlow's narration strives to obscure the fact. Marlow's place in the Congo, after all, is won by favor, not merit. It is significant, however, that his role does not exceed him: whether he deserves it or whether he is capable of carrying out the task entrusted to him is an incidental question, subordinate to the social policy of Europe. When Marlow hears the director speaking with his uncle, one of the main complaints they make against Kurtz is the external privilege he exercises: "he asked for the administration to be sent there, look at the influence that must have the man” (28). But what order Kurtz,.