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[lalala]

What does "The Horror! The Horror!" mean?
Does anyone know what it means: We live in the Flicker
and does this relate to the book and how?

[cobra]

"The horror, the horror!" is Kurtz's epiphany. Kurtz's realizes right before he dies, that Imperalism is not good at all but evil/bad. Hope this helps ^.^

[watsat]

Conrad doesn't describe it the way we're used to reading about horrible things - rape, murder, cannibalism, torture, you name it (watch Apocalypse Now for a clearer picture)- but this is what Kurtz has been doing in the jungle. Outside the restraints of civilization he became savage, and because he had the benefits of civilization among the natives he also became a king. He indulged all his worst desires and got dragged into the darkness. But the question "has he gone completely over to savagery" is in the air all through the book, and we never really know until he says those words. At that moment he saw his previous savagery as something horrible; at that moment he saw with civilized eyes and made a moral judgement. Marlowe took this to mean he was saved. Notice in Apocalypse Now Colonel Kurtz comes to the same realization and desires to be murdered.

[PigeonWing]

A) That Kurtz is passing moral judgment on his own actions, and that this 'judgment upon the adventures of his soul' an 'an affirmation, a moral victory'

B) That Kurtz's judgment of his actions is more ambivalent, condemning his actions but also registering the temptation (his whisper has 'the strange commingling of desire and hate')

C) That Kurtz is passing moral judgment on all existence ('that wide and immense stare embracing, condemning, loathing all the universe')

Remember, these are Marlow's interpretations of Kurtz's interpretations of his experiences. 'The horror!The horror!' acts as a 'thematic nexus' (connection of themes), it does not provide an 'answer' so much as involve the reader in Marlow's efforts to interpret his Congo experience

Note: Info from the 'notes on Heart of Darkness', from the Penguin Classics edition of Heart of Darkness

[sumi123]

i want to add another point to PigeonWing...
D)Kurtz deems horrible the inner nature of everybody:'no eloquence could have been so withering as his final burst of sincerity' when his stare penetrated 'all the hearts that beat in the darkness'
info from explanatory notes from oxford world classic edition of HOD