In Heart of Darkness Kurtz is portrayed as an almost god-like figure. We hear about him numerous times, while all the details are kept vague. The impressions that I got from him were: awesome, genius, clever, personable, awe inspiring. He is portrayed as the ideal person, but when we finally meet him, as the curtain is pulled back, we realized that he is so little than what we thought he was. He goes from an awe-inspiring figure to a weak, broken man so quickly. It’s very abrupt and hard for the reader to comprehend and make the mental transition. We also see a connection with The Wizard of Oz and Heart of Darkness as the primary purpose in both stories is to find the wizard and Kurtz respectively. The yellow brick road can be paralleled with the river. It’s interesting to see this connection as it shows that this is a common theme that shows up multiple times, whether in children’s literature or a short novel. It’s likely that the theme of searching for a almost mythical figure and then discovering he’s not that great is pretty widespread throughout literature.
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