2nd paragraph

Conrad’s complicated prose distorts the reader’s mind to form a transitional mind like Marlow’s. As Marlow encounters a conversion from his ‘superego’ state of mind to an ‘id’ the reader experiences a change as well. Marlow is from European society, thus, his morality is the false representation of life that he faces prior to his journey. In the beginning of the novel the doctor warns Marlow: “The changes take place inside you know” (9). The doctor foreshadows Marlow’s mentally internal change which he uncovers down the Congo; moreover, the reader undergoes a similar change. As Marlow travels down the river, he makes clear of the societal attributes that he experiences in everyday life in European customs, which creates question in the readers mind. Karl notably accurately connotes Marlow’s sense of atmospheric change “..elements that become a wedge between man’s seeming rationality and a world suddenly irrational and out of focus” (127). The Congo’s environment twists the reader’s mind to suddenly apprehend the irrationality of everyday society. Marlow’s transition conflicts the reader to decipher the appearance versus reality within the novel, influenced by Kurtz. Since Kurtz is a sporadic thinker that drifts to different scenarios in his mind, the reader is, thus, thrown into a confusing sequence of events. During Marlow’s transition to the ‘id’, he begins to assimilate his thoughts as if Kurtz influenced him to morph internal ideas; moreover, Kurtz has ‘lost’ his superego.