The Epiphany in the Heart of DarknessMarlow, in the novel "The Heart of Darkness", experiences an epiphany, or a dramatic moment in which a character intuitively grasps the nature or essential meaning of certain situations. The moment Marlow experiences his epiphany occurs just after the helmsman is killed by natives associated with Kurtz. What Marlow realizes is the savagery of man and the corruption of the ivory trade. The real change takes place when Marlow sees the helmsman die. Marlow sees the death taking place and is shocked. "The side of his head hit the wheel twice, and the end of what appeared to be a long cane snapped and knocked over a small camping stool. ...my feet were so hot and wet that I had to look down.... It was the handle of a spear that... had caught him in the side just below the ribs. I had to make an effort to free my eyes from his gaze and m. 'take charge of the direction... I declare that it was as if he were soon asking us a question in understandable language but he died without emitting a sound, without moving a limb, without contracting a muscle... " He is dead, the man murmured immensely impressed about it, I said. When this happened, Marlow realized the savagery of man, the horror of death and the corruption of the trade. ivory. He realizes that in the ivory trade, ivory is more valuable than human life and that the traders will do almost anything to obtain it. where man places more value on wealth than on human life. This is Marlow's epiphany in "The Heart of Darkness." Marlow's epiphany in "Heart of Darkness" has significance in the overall story. The theme of the story is that every man has a heart of darkness within him and that a person, alienated like Kurtz, will become wilder. Marlow, in his epiphany, realizes the savagery of man and how being alienated from modern civilization makes us wild and raw. This savagery is particularly evident in the death of the helmsman, where Marlow's epiphany takes place, but savagery is also evident in Kurtz. Kurtz's connection to the natives and the death of the helmsman is that the natives work for Kurtz..