Robert Tulip wrote: So Kurtz repents of his sins and is forgiven? I am not sure. I said before that "the horror" is the key statement of conscience in the book. However, trying to psychoanalyze Kurtz, it is hard to tell if this statement is an emotional eruption from his unconscious id or a rational product of conscious guilt. I tend towards the former
I would agree that Kurtz's eruption in his final moments might not be indicative of remorse, but it is of awareness. That seems to be enough for Marlow, who comments that most men are too wrapped up in their own self-pity to learn anything new at the end. So maybe this is a kind of strength in Kurtz, after all.
Thomas Hood posted a modern-day story about brutality and "unspeakable rites" from the Congo. He thinks that the people there were already debased and that Kurtz was simply overwhelmed by this evil cultural influence, going over to the dark side. You think that the influence of corruption might flow in the other direction, with the Europeans being the initiators with their destruction of the culture. We saw in the U.S. what the native culture could look like after the Europeans had destroyed it: debased and degraded. So I lean toward your view.
It also isn't a matter of Kurtz merely adopting the native ways, but of doing so in order to attain immense power. He was still the dominator. He became an innovator who was so good at bringing in ivory that he posed a threat to the establishment and had to be stopped.
DWill