Similarities Between Heart Of Darkness And Kurtz

The realism of literature is utterly horrific. From small, blunt messages such as loves habits to intricate, complex themes such as evil will always endure, literature's universal themes and messages withstand centuries and millennia. In one such book, Joesph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, one of the main characters is the epitome of this bold justification. This man, Kurtz, is truly a sight to behold due to his elaborate works and powers; he could be labeled as Dr. Frankenstein: an evil genius. Likewise, Jim Jones, founder of The People's Temple, is almost a mirror comparison of Kurtz. Kurtz is eerily similar to Jim Jones through their inspirational and prophetic ways, their fairly innocent youth to corruption, and the poor mistreatment of their
As a child, he would often imprison his, so-called, friends in the family barn for fun. He also enjoyed the idea and concept of death. He often preformed operations and procedures upon animals and gave funerals to those who lost life in the process. Chuck Wilmore, one of the few peoples that knew Jim as a child, too emphasizes the strangeness of Jim stating he “was a really weird kid” in a documentary done in 2006. Chuck also stressed that Jim was “obsessed with religion [and] death” even recalling certain instance where Jim “[killed] a cat with a knife”
In Guyana, Jonestown was founded in a light of a leadership of that of Stalin: everything done there was for the good of the people as a whole. Under prison like conditions, his disciples were given very diminutive portions of food and were rooted inside the perimeter of the encampment. Jones considered him a “ father to all” and was never to be interrupted (“Jim Jones”). This kingly power led to a dark day in United States; the single largest American civilian fatalities from a non-natual event of the 20th century. On November 18, 1978, Jim Jones delegated a mass suicide of the +900 inhabitants of Jonestown. This event would then become known as the Jonestown Massacre