Heart of Darkness Pages 42-54

In pages 42-54, Marlow and his ship sails on toward Mr. Kurtz. During dawn one morning, there is dense fog and the men on board hear a loud, wild cry that is followed by savage voices then silence. The white crew members are very scared while the black crew members are just quiet and alert. Marlow decides to not sail on until the fog clears up in fear of hurting the ship. He does not think the savages will attack. However, he is wrong. The ship goes by the shore which is filled with natives and the pilgrims start shooting at them. In this fight, Marlow’s African helmsman is struck with a spear and dies right in front of Marlow. To stop the fight, Marlow sounds the steam whistle which drives off the natives. Marlow then starts to wonder if Kurtz is still alive or not because of this encounter.

In this section, it seems that Marlow goes back and forth from being racist and not being racist. At one point, he views his helmsman as a “fool n-----” when he is trying to shoot at the natives. He shot at them without knowing where he was shooting and he stood right in front of the opened shutter. Later, he felt bad when the helmsman died and how he “was no more account than a grain of sand in a black Sahara” (50). He felt they had some sort of friendship or partnership since he had steered for Marlow while he looked after him. There was a bond.

Also, the reader sees how Marlow is becoming obsessed with meeting Mr. Kurtz. He feels like he would lose his purpose if Mr. Kurtz was not alive. It was like he would have been “robbed of a belief or had missed (his) destiny in life” (47). Mr. Kurtz was like some sort of hope for Marlow. Also, Marlow realizes that it is not so much him seeing Mr. Kurtz, but rather that he hears him. Supposedly, Mr. Kurtz was a “gifted creature” and had a great ability to talk.

In addition, there are several switches between narrations in this section. It shows how Marlow is reacting when he is telling this story. Also, Marlow again starts to think about the meaning of life. He realizes that you must rely on yourself, especially in the darkness, to get meaning from life.