... important not to view him as merely a surrogate for the author. Marlow is a complicated man who anticipates the figures of high modernism while also reflecting his Victorian predecessors. Marlow is in many ways a traditional hero: tough, honest, an independent thinker, a capable man. Yet he is also "broken" or "damaged," like T. S. Eliot's J. Alfred Prufrock or William Faulkner's Quentin ... tradition. Kurtz resembles the archetypal "evil genius": the highly gifted but ultimately degenerate individual whose fall is the stuff of legend. Kurtz is related to figures like Faustus, Satan in ...

• Word Count: 3088
• Approx Pages: 12
• Grade Level: Undergraduate