Who Are the Brutes?

In section we were given a passage from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.  There was one line in the piece that obviously stands out, as Marlow quotes Kurtz's postscript on the report he wrote, "Exterminate all the brutes!"  What this means and why it was included- like almost everything else in the novella- is not made clear in Marlow's telling of the story.  He does not make any attempt to interpret the meaning behind these words for the audience, but he refers to it as "valuable."

This leave us, once again, to make assumptions about what these four words could mean.  Is he referring to the savages that surround him?  Or is he perhaps making a commentary on the people that sent him there?  The "Europe [that] contributed to the making of Kurtz."  We don't really find out what team Kurtz is playing for after Marlow discovers him.

I stand by the comment that I made in section about why Marlow calls Kurtz's exclamation valuable.  I think that any hint about the makeup of Kurtz's new personality serves as valuable to Marlow.  He has become Marlow's subject of study, so the extreme change in the man is nothing if not fascinating to him.  What I wish we knew was when the postscript was written.  We have no clue as to whether he wrote it at the same time as the rest of the pamphlet, or if it was a new opinion that he had made.

Personally I think that Kurtz is restating bluntly what he likely already said.  Marlow says that the report, "was eloquent, vibrating with eloquence, but too high-strung."  It is hard to say something like "exterminate all the brutes," in a delicate manner.  It is very likely that the high-strung language that Marlow is detecting is the tiptoeing around the truth of the matter.  I imagine that people who consider themselves superior to the "savage" land that they have occupied would not want to admit straight out that they are disgusting human beings.  Instead they send each other reports that are full of innuendos that paint the picture for the club that knows the code.

So Kurtz has decided to decode the report for the masses.  This is what the report is expected to say and what it does say.  "Exterminate all the brutes!"  This leads me to believe that Conrad is making a point about imperialism and what was actually happening during this time.  He wants people to know what isn't being said... by not saying it.  He speaks the code and therefore we must too.