Heart of Darkness #5

After returning from his long journey to the inner station and back, Marlow goes to meet Kurtz's fiancé to give her Kurtz's personal papers. The devastated women talks to Marlow about her love and admiration of her fiancé as a way of coping with her pain and throughout their meeting, Marlow's pity for the poor widow grows. As they converse, she goes on to say that she "knew him best" (161) and that she "believed in him more than anyone" (163). To make the women feel better, Marlow reassures her that she was important to Kurtz: "You knew him best" (161). Kurtz's fiancé has been mourning for over a year and it is clear that she has not yet come to terms with Kurtz's death. She tells Marlow that she knew him best and that she believed in him more than anyone to reassure herself that these statements are true. She had not seen Kurtz for years and she could not know how he changed, so she wants to know that she was still a unique and important person to her fiancé. Although she likely expects that Kurtz was changed by his experiences, she wants to hold on to the idealized image of the man she loved. Marlow reassures the woman because he feels terribly for her; he knows that Kurtz was greatly affected by his experiences in Africa and, by the end of his life, Kurtz was not the same man he was before his trip. At the end of the novel, the widow requests to hear her fiancé's last words. Rather than telling her Kurtz's true final words, Marlow lies and says, "The last words he pronounced was- your name" (164). Marlow chooses not to share Kurtz's actual last statement of "The horror! The horror!" (164) to allow the woman to find peace in his death. Marlow does not want to crush her idealized image of Kurtz because she is already devastated. Revelation of the horrors of Africa and the cruel world Kurtz faced during his trip would horrify the widow and send her into a heightened fit of devastation. Marlow chooses to lie for the well-being and closure of the poor woman.