Relationship between goodness with devotion when it comes to Heart of Darkness by Conrad?

Question

“That lack of restrain arises from the lack of an inner core of faith emerges from Conrad’s continual linking of evil with hollowness and of goodness with devotion to or belief in something.”
this is a quote i have to compare two characters to and relate. I already have the hollow character (obviously) Kurtz here is what i have

Kurtz is a man, who in spite of his genius and lofty idealism is "hollow at the core." If put in relation to the quote, this hollow man ruthlessly kills Africans, steals their natural resources in order to forward his own goals for rising in the company and in the world, and presents himself as a deity to be worshiped by the natives, and there for there is a relative connection between hollowness and evil.

Im thinking of making Marlow the not hollow character but how could i relate that to the theme of goodness with devotion or belief in something? where is the link?? Does Marlow have something he strongly believes in that could prove the statement about good

Answer 1

The irony is Kurtz was a man exactly like Marlow before he was "corrupted". The loss of his wife led to needing some other connection in life which he got from the natives. Kurtz may be a "hollow" character but he wasn't always. And Marlow has the ability to be such a thing but has not yet strayed in doing so. Kurtz is the character that shows what Marlow could easily be. There is goodness in Kurtz because now he is much more of a naive, innocent person, very simple and living a simple life. Marlow is trying to stay strong and not become what Kurtz has. I'm not sure if that helps, at all.. Sorry.

Answer 2

Actually, I always thought that Marlow and Kurtz were basically the same. The difference was that Kurtz was in a totally different environment, and adapted himself to it for survival. It's unlikely that British customs would have been a good formula for survival in the jungle.

His actions, appearing insane to an Englishman, were quite sane (as in "conducive to survival of the organism") under the circumstances, despite being offensive to cultured sensibilities.