Conrad surprised me in the middle of Marlow’s stream of dialogue with this scene, in which Marlow has finally reached Kurtz’s station, but instead of being met by Kurtz, is met by a young man dressed in harlequin-patched suit and who apparently has nursed Kurtz through several illnesses, but reveals the evil, hard, side of the trader even as he defends and idolizes him. As Marlow learns much about Kurtz that reveals a much different image of the man, he idly looks at the station through a pair of binoculars.
You remember I told you I had been struck at the distance by certain attempts at ornamentation, rather remarkable in the ruinous aspect of the place. Now I had suddenly a nearer view, and its first result was to make me throw my head back as if before a blow. Then I went carefully from post to post with my class, and I saw my mistake. These round knobs were not ornamental by symbolic; they were expressive and puzzling, striking and disturbing–food for thought and also for the vultures if there had been any looking down from the sky; but at all events for such ants as were industrious enough to ascend the pole. They would have been even more impressive, those heads on the stakes, if their faces had not been turned to the house. (p. 71)
Human heads. And as the young man explains, the unfortunates are those who Kurtz had considered rebellious.
While I’m not quite sure why this novel was classified as a must-read in classic literature, I suspect that it is for the insider view of a culture that most people of the more civilized world had no concept of, that wild and dark arena where the Africans had been brought out of as slaves, were looked upon as savages, where people still referred to them as “niggers” with no malicious intent. Where indeed, Kurtz, a most civilized European, has become a savage man.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology