“The horror, the horror”

“ ‘ His last word - to live with,’ she insisted. ‘Don’t you understand I loved him - I loved him - I loved him!’ “I pulled myself together and spoke very slowly. “The last word he pronounced was - your name.’ ” (Pg. 109)

This quotation is taken from a conversation Marlow has with Kurtz’s fiance, a year after his return from Africa. Kurtz’s fiance is still in mourning over the death of Kurtz and asks Marlow to tell her what Kurtz’s last words were. Marlow lies to her saying that Kurtz spoke her name before dying, when really his last words were, “The horror, the horror” (Pg. 98). This lie was an act of sympathy by Marlow who thought it would be ‘too dark’ to tell her the truth. However I think that this lie applies on a much larger scale than just between these two people. I think that the lie Marlow tells applies to the Ivory Trade in Africa and Colonial Imperialism as a whole. Although ivory trading and imperialism were mainly corrupt and evil, there effects were justified or lied about, due to the extreme wealth they produced. Therefore lies like the one Marlow tells helped to build the false impression of ‘civilized’ trading and imperialism, which people in Europe were lead to or chose to believe. The significance of Marlow lying at the end of the novella is that in doing so nothing changes, and peoples interpretations of civilized europe and barbaric africa remain.