How Is Man Inherently Sinful

Man is Inherently Sinful "Man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness"(Martin Luther King Jr.). This quotation from Martin Luther King Jr. reveals that man has a choice to be good or evil. Each individual has the potential to display goodness but they also have the potential to give in to sin. It is up to man to fight his own inclination to sin. In Conrad's novel, Heart of Darkness, he delineates that evil can come from within. In Heart of Darkness, Marlow discovers that the evil that ensued in the jungle did not come from the white man, but instead, from the jungle itself. Joseph Conrad uses the literary elements of symbolism, imagery, and conflict to reveal the theme that man is inherently sinful. The literary element …show more content…
One of the main symbols, the river, reveals deception to which Marlow falls victim of. “But there was in it one river especially, a mighty big river, that you could see on the map, resembling an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country, and its tail lost in the depths of the land… it fascinated me as a snake would a bird- a silly little bird” (Conrad 5-6). The snake refers to the first sin from the book of Genesis when Adam gives in to temptation (Genesis 3 ESV). Because Adam sinned, man was forced to inherit sin. Just like Adam, Marlow cannot resist the temptation of sin, showing that man is inherently sinful. Kurtz's painting in the main station acts as another symbol of deception. It was an oil painting of a woman, blindfolded and clothed in robes.