"The horror! The horror!"

“The horror! The horror!” (Conrad 105).

This exclamation, Kurtz’s last, has many different connotations. One is his despair what he has done during his career in Africa, at the destruction he has wrought. Another could be his despair at mankind and its misery, as ‘no eloquence could have been so withering to one’s belief in mankind as his final burst of sincerity.’ (Conrad 101). At the end of his life, Marlow finally sees all of this destruction, as his stare ‘penetrated all the hearts that beat in the darkness.’ (Conrad 106).