Heart of Darkness #5

In this section, Marlow comes to the realization of how dark Kurtz really is. On page 57, he takes a second look at the posts outside of Kurtz’s house and realizes they are not posts with round knobs, but they are in fact skulls!

“I return deliberately to the first I had seen- and there it was black, dried, sunken, with closed eyelids- a head that seemed to sleep at the top of that pole, and with the shrunken dry lips showing a narrow white line of the teeth, was smiling too, smiling continuously at some endless and jocose dream of that eternal slumber” (p. 57).

The skulls are very symbolic to how the natives treat Kurtz. The natives worship him, and Marlow beings to think Kurtz actually ordered this. The skulls face towards Kurt’z hurt symbolizing and acting as a visual reminder he is the one with all the power and is in charge. It is his way of showing the he can take their lives at will.

What makes me twitch after reading this passage is that the skulls are actually smiling. How disturbing! We talked about in class actually, that the skulls are smiling for the simple reason of: they are released from Kurtz’s terror. I still don’t fully understand that analysis, but I do understand that sometimes death is seen as being better the act of suffering. And now all I can think of are those poor natives…