Thursday, March 5, 2015

Making Narrative Predictions: Kurtz's Station

     The reader first finds out about Mr. Kurtz on page 15. He is “a first-class agent” and he is in charge of an important “trading post” (16). Marlow doesn’t understand how Mr. Kurtz has so much ivory.  The business is quite sketchy, and something is wrong. However, people respect Mr. Kurtz a lot.
     The accountant believes that Mr. Kurtz “will go far” (16).  He also seems to be quite afraid of the boss; he asks Marlow to tell Mr. Kurtz that “everything here is very satisfactory” (16). The accountant is not the only one who is afraid of Mr. Kurtz. On page 19 the reader gets to know the manager. The manager “fidgeted on his chair a good deal” and then later “he broke the stick of stealing wax”, which means that he is very nervous about this subject (19).  This interaction was indeed very futile, because the manager was afraid to say something wrong about Mr. Kurtz.  However, Marlow believes every single word and he starts to like this ambitious man. People almost seem to be obligated to give a good feedback about Mr. Kurtz.
     Mr. Kurtz knows and understands people really well. The Europeans want the power and the wealth, which is why everyone really wants to work for Mr. Kurtz. He gives people an opportunity to earn money, however he is the one who dictates the rules.
     I think that Mr. Kurtz treats the natives quite well, because they do so much work for him. The painting is also very self-explanatory. He basically painted “Lady Justice”. I believe that Mr. Kurtz gives the natives some hope and freedom, and then he uses them to get even richer. I don’t think that Mr. Kurtz is very sincere in his actions. I believe that he had good intentions at the beginning, but later he got the “gold fever” and his "nerves went wrong" (45). He became really paranoid about his achievments, he repeats again and again "my intended, my ivory, my station, my river, my - " (44). Everyone really believed that Mr. Kurtz was the future, but sadly he lost control over his actions.

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