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Heart of Darkness Charlie Marlow Quotes

Charlie Marlow

Quote 115

"Besides that, they had given them every week three pieces of brass wire, each about nine inches long; and the theory was they were to buy their provisions with that currency in riverside villages. You can see how that worked. There were either no villages, or the people were hostile, or the director, who like the rest of us fed out of tins, with an occasional old he-goat thrown in, didn't want to stop the steamer for some more or less recondite reason. So, unless they swallowed the wire itself, or made loops of it to snare the fishes with, I don't see what good their extravagant salary could be to them. I must say it was paid with a regularity worthy of a large and honourable trading company." (2.14)

The Company is so greedy that they assume the Africans are that way, too. Marlow makes fun of this attitude in the last sentence. When the pilgrims cannot offer suitable food to the Africans, they offer useless brass wire as payment. They don't care that brass wire isn't edible, or that the steamboat doesn't pass any villages where the Africans can step off and barter it for food. In other words, they have only themselves to blame that the cannibals are now so eager for human flesh.

Charlie Marlow

Quote 116

"'Kurtz got the tribe to follow him, did he?' I suggested. He fidgeted a little. 'They adored him,' he said. The tone of these words was so extraordinary that I looked at him searchingly. It was curious to see his mingled eagerness and reluctance to speak of Kurtz. The man filled his life, occupied his thoughts, swayed his emotions. 'What can you expect?' he burst out; 'he came to them with thunder and lightning, you know—and they had never seen anything like it—and very terrible. He could be very terrible." (3.4)

Kurtz is so powerful that he manages to convince the native Africans to help him steal ivory from their fellow tribes. What's weird is we can't quite tell if the Africans worship him because they think he's awesome, or because they're terrified of him. Is it the same?

Charlie Marlow

Quote 117

"I am not disclosing any trade secrets. In fact, the manager said afterwards that Mr. Kurtz's methods had ruined the district. I have no opinion on that point, but I want you clearly to understand that there was nothing exactly profitable in these heads being there." (3.5)

All of a sudden, Marlow seems awfully concerned with the Company's profits. Like the manager, he disagrees with Kurtz's judgment here, saying that beheading native Africans wasn't exactly profitable. Callous? Cynical? Satiric? You decide.