Kurtz ( Heart of Darkness ) - wikipedia Kurtz ( Heart of Darkness ) Kurtz is a central fictional character in Joseph Conrad 's novella Heart of Darkness. A trader of ivory in Africa and commander of a trading post, he monopolises his position as a demigod among native Africans. Kurtz meets with the novella 's protagonist, Charles Marlow, who returns him to the coast via steamboat. Kurtz, whose reputation precedes him, impresses Marlow strongly, and during the return journey Marlow is witness to Kurtz 's final moments. Contents 1 In the novella 2 Basis 3 In other works 3.1 Film 3.2 Games 3.3 Literature 4 Notes and references 5 External links In the novella Kurtz is an ivory trader, sent by a shadowy Belgian company into the heart of an unnamed place in Africa ( generally regarded as the Congo Free State ). With the help of his superior technology, Kurtz has turned himself into a charismatic demigod of all the tribes surrounding his station, and gathered vast quantities of ivory in this way. As a result, his name is known throughout the region. Kurtz 's general manager is envious of Kurtz, and plots his downfall. Kurtz 's mother was half English, his father was half French and thus `` All Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz. '' As the reader finds out at the end, Kurtz is a multitalented man -- painter, musician, writer, promising politician. He starts out, years before the novel begins, as an imperialist in the best tradition of the `` white man 's burden ''. The reader is introduced to a painting of Kurtz 's, depicting a blindfolded woman bearing a torch against a nearly black background, and clearly symbolic of his former views. Kurtz is also the author of a pamphlet regarding the civilization of the natives. However, over the course of his stay in Africa, Kurtz becomes corrupted. He takes his pamphlet and scribbles in, at the very end, the words `` Exterminate all the brutes ! '' He induces the natives to worship him, setting up rituals and venerations worthy of a tyrant. By the time Marlow, the protagonist, sees Kurtz, he is ill with jungle fever and almost dead. Marlow seizes Kurtz and endeavors to take him back down the river in his steamboat. Kurtz dies on the boat with the last words, `` The horror ! The horror ! '' Kurtz ultimately was changed by the jungle. At first he wanted to bring civilization to the natives, as his painting shows, but in the end he changed to wanting to `` exterminate all the brutes ! '' Basis Kurtz 's persona is generally understood to derive from the notoriously brutal history of the so - called `` Congo Free State '', which was later taken over by Belgium and became a Belgian colony in 1908. In his history book King Leopold 's Ghost, Adam Hochschild suggests that Léon Rom, an administrator in King Leopold 's Congo, i.e. in the Congo Free State, was the principal inspiration for the Kurtz character, citing references as the heads on the stakes outside of the station and other similarities between the two. Hochschild and other authors have also suggested that the fate of the disastrous `` rear column '' of the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition ( 1886 - 8 ) on the Congo may have also been an influence. Column leader Edmund Musgrave Barttelot, `` went mad, began hitting, whipping, and killing people, and was finally murdered ''. Bloom notes that Kurtz 's sophisticated brutality is closer to that of Barttelot 's associate slave trader Tippu Tip. The expedition 's overall leader, Henry Morton Stanley, the principal figure involved in preparing the Congo for Leopold 's rule, may also have been an influence. A personal acquaintance of Conrad 's, Georges Antoine Klein, may also have been a real - life basis for the character. Klein was an employee of the Brussels - based trading company Société Anonyme Belge pour le Commerce du Haut - Congo, and died shortly after being picked up on the steamboat Conrad was piloting. Further, `` Klein '' means `` little '' in German, and as Marlow muses in the novella, `` Kurtz '' means `` short '' in the same language. Conrad also expressed an admiration of Robert Louis Stevenson 's Pacific Ocean writings, in particular the stories `` The Beach of Falesá '' and The Ebb - Tide, as well as the non-fiction account of Tembinok ' of the Gilbert Islands that appeared in In the South Seas. All three texts contain megalomaniacs who manipulate their circumstances and remote settings to assert power over others. It is widely believed that Conrad drew influence from these characters, as well as Stevenson 's plot lines, when writing Heart of Darkness. In other works Film In the 1958 loose adaptation for the CBS television anthology series Playhouse 90 Kurtz was played by Boris Karloff. This version uses the encounter between Marlow and Kurtz as its final act, and adds a backstory in which Marlow had been Kurtz 's adopted son. Francis Ford Coppola 's acclaimed Vietnam War film Apocalypse Now ( 1979 ) centers on the protagonist 's mission to find and kill the renegade Colonel Kurtz ( played by Marlon Brando ), based on Conrad 's character, who has gone rogue far up a river, deep in the Southeast Asian jungle. The script acknowledges Heart of Darkness as a source of information, and the last words of Colonel Kurtz, `` The horror ! The horror ! '', echo those of his namesake in the novel. In the mostly poorly received 1994 TNT version of the story directed by Nicolas Roeg, Kurtz, who has gone insane and is now doing the most horrible and blasphemous deeds, was portrayed by John Malkovich. Games The video game Fallout : New Vegas ( 2010 ) features a character in many ways similar to Kurtz ; a man who refers to himself as Caesar. Caesar was originally a diplomat who went out into the post-apocalyptic world in an attempt to both increase the knowledge of the now tribal inhabitants and learn from their cultures to facilitate understanding in the wasteland. Caesar eventually went mad with power after becoming the de facto leader of one such tribe and led them in dismantling other tribes who then assimilated into his group. Now, he is the ruler of Caesar 's Legion, a large army of tribals modeled after the Roman Empire. Like Kurtz, Caesar is an educated, charismatic figure who is worshipped as a god by his underlings ; in Caesar 's case, his followers believe him to be the reincarnation of Mars, the Roman god of war. The video game Spec Ops : The Line ( 2012 ), another modernized loose adaptation of Heart of Darkness ( set in a ruined Dubai ), has a similar Kurtz figure named Colonel John Konrad. Literature Timothy Findley 's novel Headhunter ( 1993 ) features Kurtz 's escape from Heart of Darkness and subsequent reign of terror over the city of Toronto as the psychiatrist - in - chief at the Parkin Institute. The poem `` The Hollow Men '' by T.S. Eliot starts off with the line `` Mistah Kurtz - He Dead. '' James Reich 's novel Mistah Kurtz ! ( Anti-Oedipus Press 2016 ) is a prelude to Heart of Darkness that presents meticulous and controversial solutions to the origins, mystery and messianic deterioration of Kurtz. Notes and references Jump up ^ Bloom 2009, p. 16 Jump up ^ Hochschild, Adam : King Leopold 's Ghost. New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998, pp. 98 ; 145, Jump up ^ Conrad, Joseph ( September 1997 ). Heart of Darkness. Introduction by Joyce Carol Oates. Penguin Putnam. pp. 4 -- 5. ISBN 0 - 451 - 52657 - 0. Jump up ^ `` Apocalypse Now ( 1979 ) ''. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2017 - 10 - 13. Jump up ^ `` Apocalypse Now ( 1979 ) Awards ''. IMDb. Retrieved 2017 - 10 - 13. Jump up ^ `` Heart of Darkness ( 1994 ) ''. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2017 - 10 - 13. Jump up ^ `` Reviews & Ratings for Heart of Darkness ( TV ) ''. IMDb. Retrieved 2017 - 10 - 13. External links Mr. Kurtz in Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad 's Heart of Darkness Adaptations Apocalypse Now ( 1979 film ) Heart of Darkness ( 1993 film ) Apocalypse Now Redux ( 2001 film ) Heart of Darkness ( 2011 opera ) Related Kurtz Charles Marlow International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death Shatterpoint `` An Image of Africa '' Hearts of Darkness : A Filmmaker 's Apocalypse Spec Ops : The Line ( 2012 video game ) Apocalypse Now Apocalypse Now Redux Hearts of Darkness : A Filmmaker 's Apocalypse Heart of Darkness Colonel Walter E. Kurtz / Kurtz The Apocalypse Now Sessions Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kurtz_(Heart_of_Darkness)&oldid=832941782 '' Categories : Joseph Conrad characters Fictional businesspeople Fictional characters introduced in 1899 Fictional cult leaders Fictional dictators Fictional mass murderers Literary villains Talk Contents About Wikipedia Add links This page was last edited on 28 March 2018, at 20 : 13. About Wikipedia

Question: what was kurtz doing in the heart of darkness
Answer: Kurtz is an ivory trader