Annotated Bibliography: Heart of Darkness & Apocalypse Now
Bodek, Richard. "Conrad's Heart of Darkness" The Explicator 59 (2000): 25. In this article Richard Bodek discusses the implications of Kurtz's famous final words to Marlow, "The horror! The Horror!". Of great importance to the novel's meaning is not only why Kurtz said this, but why Marlow decided to lie about it. Bodek poses the idea that in telling Kurtz's fiancée that "the last word he pronounced" was her name, Marlow was actually telling the truth. If Kurtz's intended is meant to act as a "personification of European culture in all of its ambivalence" then what she represents is, in fact, the horror to which Kurtz was referring. Bodek dissects the Kurtz's final scene, tying in many of the novella's essential themes. …
