In Joseph Conrad's novel, "Heart of Darkness," we can easily see how the
             environment can have a negative impact on an individual's mental health.
             By examining the character of Kurtz, we can see how easily this occurs.
             We are told by Marlow that Kurtz is "gifted" (Conrad 1902 p. 294) and
             when Kurtz arrived in the jungle, his "sympathies were in the right place"
             (p. 295). However, after years of living in an elevated state above the
             natives, he began to lose his respect for life as well as his sanity. The
             natives worshipped him and he had the "power to charm and frighten
             rudimentary souls into an aggravated witch-dance in his honor" (p. 296).
             This illustrates how he began to actually believe he was as great as the
             natives thought he was. This inflated self opinion was the beginning of
             In addition, Kurtz was only interested in obtaining more ivory. We read
             that after years of living alone, he "wandered alone far in the depths of
             the forest" (p. 301). In addition, he would "disappear for weeks; forget
             himself amongst the people" (p. 302) to hunt for more ivory. This
             illustrates how he became more isolated from people, which also attributed
             Eventually, Kurtz lost his ability to reason because he was obsessed
             with ivory and because he was alone more and more. In fact, Kurtz
             threatened to shoot his dearest friend if he did not give Kurtz his ivory.
             We are told that Kurtz "declared he would shoot me unless I gave him the
             ivory and then cleared out of the country, because he could do so . . . and
             there was nothing on earth to prevent him from killing whom he jolly well
             pleased" (p. 301). Additionally, Kurtz kept a collection of shrunken heads
             on stakes near his house. (p. 303) We are told that these heads "only
             showed that Mr. Kurtz lacked restraint in the gratification of his various
             lusts" (p. 303). This demonstrates Kurtz's complete lack of respect for
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