which is a step above his comrades. He is “an athletic black belonging to some coast tribe…He sported a pair of brass earrings, wore a blue cloth wrapper from the waist to the ankle, and thought all the world of himself. He was the most unstable kind of fool I had ever seen.” (45) Marlow’s first impression of his helmsman is not any kinder than his opinions of the other natives he has come in contact with thus far. He belonged to “some coast tribe”. Marlow did not care enough to find out the name of his tribe or anything else about him; he simply saw him as another creature. Marlow’s reaction to his helmsman is ironic because like Kurtz’s natives, he needs his helmsman in order to continue his mission. The helmsman is also the one who dies while they are journeying up the river. He dies because of Marlow’s lack of knowledge of how to handle himself in the Congo. When they are being attacked, Marlow and the rest of his crew immediately start firing at the primitive arrows which are being shot at them, and the helmsman is the only one who finds an arrow in his chest. We two whites stood over him…it looked as though he would presently put to us some question in an understandable language, but he died without uttering a sound, without moving a limb, without twitching a muscle. Only in the very last moment as though in response to some sign we could not see…he frowned heavily, and that frown gave to his Black Death mask an inconceivably sombre, brooding, and menacing expression. The lustre of inquiring glance faded swiftly into vacant glassiness. (47) Marlow and his crew obviously care about his death from this passage. It is not something they take lightly. The helmsman meant a lot to them, not only because he provided direction, but because he showed the crew that black men could hold a place of power and be needed just as much as anyone else. This event provided an importan...
