He went thinking that each ivory station should stand like a beacon light, offering a better way of life to the natives. He was considered to be a "universal genius": he was an orator, writer, poet, musician, artist, politician, ivory producer, and chief agent of the ivory company's Inner Station. Yet, he was also a "hollow man," a man without basic integrity or any sense of social responsibility. "Kurtz issues the feeble cry, 'The horror! The horror!' and the man of vision, of poetry, the 'emissary of pity, and science, and progress' is gone. Kurtz being cut off from civilization reveals his dark side. Once he entered within his "heart of darkness" he was shielded from the light. Kurtz transformed into a thief, murderer, raider, persecutor, and to climax all of his other shady practices, he allows himself to be worshipped as a god.
If Marlow stands for work, Kurtz represents the opposite value, talk. Before meeting him, Marlow can imagine him only talking, not doing; and when Marlow does finally come face-to-face with him, Kurtz is so thin from disease that he seems to be little more than a strong, deep voice. His influence on people (the Russian, the Intended, even the accountant and the brick maker) comes through his eloquent words. He is a journalist (a profession for which Conrad seems to hold little regard: Marlow is disgusted by the "rot let loose in print" in the Belgian papers). One of his colleagues thinks he would have made a fine radical politician: after all, if he could sway individuals by his words, couldn't he sway masses as well? Conrad was conservative in his own politics; he would have disapproved of Kurtz the demagogue, the radical speaker. .
Actions, Marlow seems to be saying, can't lie; but words can and do. And Kurtz is associated with lies. After explaining that Kurtz (kurz) is German for short, Marlow tells us: "Well, the name was as true as everything else in his life- and death.