Part 1 ¶ 62:
I would not have gone so far as to fight for Kurtz, but I went for him near enough to a lie. You know I hate, detest, and can’t bear a lie, not because I am straighter than the rest of us, but simply because it appalls me. There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in lies—which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world—what I want to forget. It makes me miserable and sick, like biting something rotten would do.
What lie does Marlow tell for Kurtz, and why does he tell it? How does Marlow become entangled in a lie--bite into something rotten--when he signs on as a steamboat captain in the Congo?
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The entire Congo affair is a lie. A lie to the people of Europe, as well as the rest of the world. The "grand project" Marlow signs up for ends up being the terribly evil embargo placed upon the freedom of the natives. It is indeed a most rotten fruit that Marlow sinks his ignorant teeth into. To make it even worse, he is surrounded by others who are not only eating the fruit, but savoring every blackened drop of tainted sap. He then watches as they dab away the juice dribbling from their mouths so that the rest of the world would never know of their dread feast.
Even so, Marlow lies for Kurtz. He lies to his Intended, sheltering her from the truth of the man she so blindly loved. I think he does it because such a darkness as he found in the Congo should not be allowed to escape into the world.
He doesn't want to taint an innocent woman with the knowledge. Even for those reasons it's still a lie for Kurtz, as it preserves his name, leaving his memory untarnished in the Indended.
As Matt already mentioned, the lie that Marlow unwittingly enters into is the lie spun by Belgians to hide the true nature of their occupation in the Congo. It is a lie revealed to Marlow only upon his arrival in the region, when he witnesses firsthand the brutality with which the Belgians treat the natives, the violence and cruelty they inflict, the disaster and destruction they leave in their wake, and it is a lie that shatters Marlow's naive and idealistic view of imperialism and of the so-called 'humanitarian efforts' of the Belgians in the Congo. It is also a lie that he brings with him when he returns to Europe, a lie that he leaves with Kurtz's Intended when asked of the late official's last words and last months of life, and I think he continues that lie not because he believes it himself but because he would LIKE to; to me, Marlow seems an idealist at heart, an eternal optimist, an individual who sees only the best in people, and I think that he wanted to spare Kurtz's Intended from the doubt and disillusionment that he himself suffered when he arrived in the Congo and learned the truth.
I wholeheartedly agree with both Hari and Matt. Marlow, who proclaims to detest lies as they are ripe with the taint of death and rot, becomes unwittingly entangled in Leopold’s lie (though it can be argued that he had some sense of it as he was signing the contract). In order to systematically exploit the Congo without interruption, Leopold and the SAB painted a façade of humanitarianism and philanthropic works. But instead of working to help the Congolese people, Leopold worked to exploit and murder the land and its people. When Marlow signs on as a steamboat captain, he becomes initiated and entangled into that same lie. However, at the same time, by the very act of relating the story of what he sees, he is undermining and exposing Leopold’s lie. Through his storytelling, Marlow is wiping the rotten juice from his lips.
Nevertheless, though Marlow detests lies, he ends up lying for Kurtz. As others have mentioned, when Marlow visits Kurtz’s Intended, he tells her that just as Kurtz passed away, his last words were her name. However, I feel that this lie was not so much for Kurtz’s benefit but for Marlow’s and the Intended (somehow I doubt whether Kurtz would really care about what his Intended thought of him in death). Marlow states that though Kurtz deserved his due, in the end he could not tell Kurtz’s Intended the truth. “It would have been too dark-too dark altogether…” (part 3, paragraph 86). The truth would have devastated and crippled her and that resulting darkness would have been too great for Marlow to bear. Rather, Marlow tells and maintains a lie for Kurtz by exulting and praising his greatness and generosity. He sings Kurtz’s praises even as he lies in a mud pit in the Congo. Marlow, as he had promised the Russian, keeps the darkness within Kurtz a secret and maintains for him a generous and great façade. Marlow is willing (or at least unopposed) to doing this, not because he respects and loves Kurtz, but because he admires and recognizes the man within him. As he stated in section 2, a fool gapes and shudders at the darkness and savagery, but a man is able to “look on without a wink” (part 2, paragraph 8)
As others have said, Marlow views his optimistic view of the Congo as a lie. There is the more concrete and literal example of a lie when Marlow hides all the evil Kurtz committed from his Intended by saying Kurtz uttered her name at his death, but I believe Marlow was talking more of his willingness to spend time with Kurtz and work alongside him. Marlow wants to see the best in Kurtz, and his intrigue at his fall and what he has done distracts him from the terrible things Kurtz has done.
I have to disagree with Matt in that Marlow was not ignorant with what he was doing, and he does regret telling the lie to the Intended. What Kurtz wanted was to show the world what is going on in the Congo, and that I agree with Matt and Hari and Michelle, but Marlow did not have the heart to tell the Intended the truth because she was a woman and she was already mourning for her beloved. Also, Marlow had kept a promise to try and keep Kurtz’s reputation in order. Marlow is in fact really devoted in telling the truth, and he announces it as a brave thing to do, “He must meet truth with his own true stuff – with his inborn strength” (part 1, par. 8). Not only that, Marlow also recognized that the Natives were not out there to purge and conquer the intruders, but they were actually afraid of them. What the Natives were doing was they were trying to protect themselves. Marlow saw this, and he saw what Kurtz saw, a group of people trying to preserve their way of life, “Unexpected, wild, and violent as they had been, they had given me an irresistible impression of sorrow” (part 2, par. 16).
Kurtz, he didn’t really seem to care for his reputation, but the man that followed Kurtz believed that that was the last thing he had to keep Kurtz’s life [and death] justified. He did not want people see Kurtz as an insane man that lost his track in life, but that’s because he did not see what Kurtz had seen when he had gone on those treks by himself. For Marlow, the four words, “The horror! The horror!” (part 3. Par. 43) describes all of the things that both the Natives and King Leopold II has done to the Congo, and life in general. King Leopold II, like Hari had said, lied to the Belgian people that he was doing a good deed when in fact he was ridding the Congolese of rubber and ivory, and in the process, killing millions of innocent people. Marlow hid this from the mourning woman, because we have already discussed how women in this story is depicted as naïve and innocent. Always looking for glory in everything as Marlow said of his aunt, “ ‘It’s queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own. And there had never been anything like it, and never can be.’” (part 1, par. 29). Or the picture of the woman holding the torch, blindfolded. Women who strive for justice, are blinded because they aren’t told the truth. Like what Marlow did, what the Intended, but she was deceived and will never really know the truth. Marlow does tell the truth, but to the men that he’s telling the story to. If it was a woman, he would probably decline in ever telling them anything.
Marlow states shortly after this passage, "I became in an instant as much of a pretense as the rest the rest of the bewitched pilgrims" part 1 paragraph 62. I found the most striking aspect of this passage the mention of being a pretense- a reoccurring theme in our novels this year. When Marlow enters the Congo he enters a world ruled by pretenses. The men, the white men, in charge have no real authority. There are all of lowly origins in Europe and certainly have no power in the Congo. But they all take on the pretense of figures with power. They feel the need to execute there power to proof that they have it. Like Benard in Brave New World; he yelled at his servant to enforce his authority because he doubted himself. He felt the need to exert authority to show that he was an upper class, while the others who were self assured of their ranking felt no need to proof themselfs. Because the colonist have no real power they have a similar need to take on a facade and act how they think someone of high ranking should. Its the same as Pip who tried to become a gentleman by acting how he thought a gentleman should act. Marlow is sucked into this world of ordinary men trying to fulfill roles of power. They act violently to proof themselves and to act how they believe they should. This is the pretense that he becomes, the pretence of the decieved or bewithced pilgrams. There is a second pretense adapted- the pretense of pilgrams. The white men are not only pretending to be powerful, but also pretending to be missionaries. In Europe most people are deceived by this pretense to think that the white men are helping the uncivilized savages. This is the allusion that Marlow is trying to keep up when he lies to Kurtz intended. He is lying for Kurtz but also lying for all of the men like Kurtz. The entire lot of deluded men, trying to become something they are not in the only way they know.
I never said he was ignorant of anything...
I agree pretty much with what everyone else has said. The lie Marlow tells for Kurtz involves the entire secret of the Congo. The horror is so fantastic in fact that even we, the readers, aren't fully aware of the happenings. I agree with Matt that Marlow tells the lie to protect the world from the truth. To protect them from the horrors that were happening, and i doubt he was alone in this. For a scheme like Leopold's to exist for so long, thousands must have lied for him. I think that possibly the reason that they told the lie is that they felt that somehow it would reflect poorly on them. That because they went to the congo and did nothing they were in some way responsible. And maybe that's true, maybe Marlow should have done something. Maybe he couldn't have.
I think that when he signs the contract he agrees to tell the lie. He sacrifices his honesty for the adventure, unknowningly. Because he doesn't truly know what he's getting into. The way that he tells the story comes off as kind of sarcastic or indifferent. But I think when you look at the specific moments that stand out it really did have a huge effect on him and the way he viewed the world. By signing the contract he agreed to all of that, he agreed to be part of the great scheme of imperialism.
You most certainly implied it, Mr. Putnam!
I agree with everyone else about the lie that Marlow says to Kurtz’s Intended about his last words, as the definite lie that Marlow utters, however, another lie that I believe is important is the one which began this whole ordeal. Immediately upon the time Marlow signs up for being a steamboat captain in the Congo, he becomes entangled in a web of lies. While in the waiting room after signing up, in part 1 paragraph 25, Marlow states, “it was just as though I had been let into some conspiracy…something not quite right; and I was glad to get out,” he begins to understand that what he signed up for seems a bit suspicious, and he believes that by leaving the room he is free of this questionable atmosphere. However, he never does leave it, he not only is still entangled in it, but also becomes a part of it. As soon as one enters the doors of darkness, they can never leave, which is what the old women symbolize in a way. This is not only what Marlow notices, but he also enters those doors himself. Therefore, Marlow knows he did so, but instead he tells himself that he is all right by leaving the room, which is in a way showing that he is somewhat lying to himself. Marlow is has walked in and entered doors of darkness but never wants to full admit that he has done so, which in return, is doing what he says he despises the most. Thus, he is already entangled in the lies before he ever enters the Congo
As nearly everyone has already pointed out, the lie that Marlow tells specifically for Kurtz is during his dialog with Kurtz's Intended. His reasoning behind the lie, as Michelle previously mentioned, is because the truth would have been "too dark". Along with what many other folks have said and our discussions in class, this is another example of the how women are protected from the horrors and atrocities of reality.
Marlow becomes subjected to the harsh realities and is unable to speak the truth. This happens from his inability to recover from such a dark matter that cannot simply (or easily for that matter) be revealed/explained. Thus, he becomes entrapped as everyone else who holds knowledge of the truth.
As all of the others have mentioned before me, I too think that the deception of the Belgian Government in reference to their exploits in the Congo is the lie that Marlow is entering into for Kurtz. Kurtz in this case represents all of the hidden horrors and tragedies and lies that are within the Congo. Marlow is like every sailor who just wants to have a little bit of adventure and do something worthwhile during his life, but upon coming to the Congo becomes a part of this huge lie. Marlow is horrified about everything going on, sarcastically and cynically mocking the actions of the white-men and the natives because that is his only way of coping with these horrors. And just as many people have mentioned before, Marlow lies to Kurtz’s Intended about the nature of Kurtz’s death, despite his loathing of lying. I think it is also interesting to note that Marlow mentions that he feels that lying has traces of death within it. There are several moments in Heart of Darkness where the reader can see Marlow’s disgust with death, but I think that the most interesting is of when his helmsman dies. The entire passage lasts from about paragraph 22 through 27 in part 2, but the point I want to make is in paragraph 27 when Marlow directly addresses his audience stating, “Absurd! My dear boys what can you expect from a man who out of sheer nervousness had just flung overboard a pair of new shoes!” Remember that the helmsman’s blood had soaked his shoes and socks and essentially reeked of death, a thing that he absolutely abhors. And yet he flings this pair of shoes overboard because they represent a thing which terrifies and disgusts him.
I think that’s all for now.
Marlow’s lie can be interpreted with two meanings. A literal one, which covers a single event in the book and a metaphorical one, which encompasses the greater theme. The former is in regards to the lie that Marlow told Kurtz’s fiancé in order to spare her feelings. Even though Kurtz is a man of terrible ideals and beliefs, he lies for him in order to protect the feelings of his fiancé and her memories of him as a man. He lies for Kurtz, not because he likes him, but he pities his fiancé. If she knew the truth about Kurtz it would cause her un-needed pain. The metaphorical lie is about the Congo and the tragedies taking place. Marlow is part of the deception in making people believe that going to the Congo is a humanitarian cause. I’m reminded of a scene in the beginning of the book with Marlow taking with his aunt. She talks about how good it is that the white men are going down to Africa to bring civilization to the savages. He is part of the regime that enslaves the natives and uses them as cheap tools. Even if Marlow never physically took a weapon and hurt a native, he became part of the problem when he signed the document to be the steamboat ship captain. The rotting apple is the evil deed in itself and Marlow wanted a piece of the apple because of the money he could earn. He took one bite and realized the calamity of his actions and his part in the horrific lie.
Marlow becomes entangled in the hypocrisy that is the Belgium's mission in the Congo. Hypocrisy is a lie and like a facade involves pretending to be something that it really isn't. Atrocities are willfully committed in the name of civilization and humanitarianism. Marlow goes in for adventure and finds a web of lies. In the end he concludes by lying to Kurtz's intended saying that his dying words were her name. While he detests lying, he tells her anyway, I believe because of the opinion he shows about woman starting from his opinion about his aunt's idealism. Marlow believes that woman needs to be sheltered from the truth
The lie that Marlow tells for Kurtz is to Kurtz's "Intended". He tells her that Kurtz's last word was her name and she finds comfort in that. Had he told her the truth she would have realized that Kurtz was not who she thought he was, and actually a pretty nasty guy. He would rather her be happy with her memory of Kurtz, then who he actually was in the Congo. By signing on as a steamboat captain in the Congo, Marlow becomes a part of a huge lie against humanity. By signing his contract he also agrees that he will not let known what is actually happening in the Congo either.
I agree with what everyone else has said about the overall lie that the Congo exhibits as well as the small lie that Marlow tells to Kurtz’s intended. As soon as Marlow signs on to be a steamboat captain in the Congo he is (in my mind) joining the lie. Just as Fiona said, he felt uncomfortable but he didn’t do anything about it. With Kurtz’s intended I think in part he was spreading the lie of the Congo, doing his part in masking the horror. I also think that he was just being nice. It’s hard enough to lose the one you love; she didn’t need to know who Kurtz was in the Congo or what he did. I think that Marlow thought it would just be easier for her if she had one more happy memory of Kurtz to last her for the rest of her life.
I'm going to try to expand on thoughts here, since I agree with a lot of what has been posted, and don't want to be repetitive.
For me, the most interesting part of this passage was the mention of pretenses. Krista pointed this out as well. Marlow, upon embarking on the events of his tale, becomes wrapped up in a world of lies. But not blatant, verbal lies. Lies in action - the pretense most characters seem to be hiding behind, all in the sake of the "grand" project.
Men are indirectly lying (both to themselves and to their "cause") by acting on what they think is expected of them.
So while there is the obvious lie to Kurtz' intended about the nature of his death, there is also the underlying hypocrisy that Marlow and the other white men carry throughout the Congo.
To Matt: You did say that he had "ignorant teeth," though.
As for the prompt:
In immediate context, the "lie" this passage refers to seems to be the pretense created by leading on the foolish brickmaker.
Marlow is quickly lumped into the "gang of virtue" with Kurtz, which seems to be for the best for the moment--the folly of the Central Station and the surreality of the African interior that he's witnessed so far hasn't made their "hollow" company an attractive prospect.
He uses the metaphor of the Scotch sailmaker to try and explain his perplexing situation: risking battle in defense of a faraway and constructed concept of Martian life, just as Marlow has done with his supposed connections with Kurtz at this point. "He was just a word for me. I did not see the man in the name any more than you do."
Despite knowing next to nothing about the man himself, Marlow becomes increasingly drawn to Kurtz as an alternative to the repulsively foolish Company men (of the flabby devil) and the harsh African "conditions" around him. While Kurtz's painting might seem like a thoroughly obvious metaphor to us readers, it must be a amazing bit of insight indeed to tired old Marlow's eyes.
To the mere end of pursuing this maybe-less-crazy alternative (and obtaining rivets), he comes close to a "lie" in leading on the brickmaker to believe that he has considerable backing in Europe, as part of Kurtz's circle of friends. The sheer dreamlike surreality of the environment drives him to it, as he has trouble conveying. In this state, he ends up sickening himself with the stain of morality.
Marlow's grand journey leads to Kurtz, in all his madness.
I also find what Thanh said about Kurtz to be interesting in contemplating the lie to the Intended: "Kurtz, he didn’t really seem to care for his reputation. . ."
In this story, Marlow presents Kurtz as a horribly ironic character, almost to the point of paradox.
To his cousin, Kurtz is a talented virtuoso; to the reporter, Kurtz is a master politician and a brilliant extremist leader; to the Russian, Kurtz is a guru of sorts, a mental explorer; to the manager and his like, Kurtz serves as a terrible scapegoat, one who has failed even more than they themselves to uphold the civilized ideals of imperialism.
Marlow alone collects these drastically different constructs of the otherwise hollow man in addition to his own complicated version, giving him unique perspective (as his character tends to do). In doing so, he begins to doubt the Kurtz he knew as the most meaningful Kurtz-memory. Everyone else is so confident that their Kurtz was an imposing figure in reality, despite such limited knowledge... Kurtz has made such lasting impacts on their lives.
With this confusion clouding his mind, he goes to see the Intended. While Marlow doesn't know it, the illusions that he accuses women of taking root in are much the same as the illusions that men construct to understand themselves, to justify their actions, to rationalize "imperialism." Perhaps here, between the lines, lies his lie.
He lies to the Intended not only to preserve her "mature capacity for fidelity, for belief," but also because she may be no more "incorrect" about Kurtz than he himself is--despite his insistence that his experience sets him apart from the rest. To shatter her image of Kurtz would be to affirm his own, but he actually knows Kurtz no more than he knows himself: only "as well as it is possible for one man to know another."
And there are a couple of my more abstract thoughts on the matter.
I'd post more grounded responses, but that feels too much like stealing from the posts before me.
also, somehow 12 comments have popped up while i was writing this post, yeesh
Marlow makes the same realizations that Conrad himself made when he visited the Congo. The depravity and barbarity of what was occurring there was pretty much unknown or ignored by everyone and Conrad was no exception. Once he visited, his eyes were thrust open to the horrible truth.
An interesting note is that Marlow originally wanted to go the Congo because it was unexplored. On his childhood globe, it was a dominating yellow region, where no one had really been to and that was the reason he wanted to go. It had nothing to do with civilizing anyone or making money, which were the chief reasons for basically everyone else going there.
Like everyone else said above me, the lie Marlow tells is to Kurtz's Intended. I believe he tells her this lie because he was so crushed about the truth of what Kurtz really is he didn't want to force the pain onto another. Since he first was told about Kurtz, Marlow was anxious to meet him. He expected to meet this great genius whom he could learn from. Instead, he finds this cruel man who possesses none of the qualities Marlow expected him to have. The poor Intended is so distraught and upset by Kurtz's passing that Marlow takes pity on her. I think his decision to lie is not based as much on his respect for Kurtz, but on his kindness and feeling for the Intended.
The lie that exists in this story is the real nature for the colonization of the Congo. The ignorance of the people of the surrounding countries allows them to truly believe that the Congo is not being exploited and it is in good hands. Marlow becomes entangled in this lie when he enlists to go to the Congo. However, I also believe that Marlow is entangled in a lie with the very paradoxical reputation that Kurtz has. When we are first introduced to Kurtz, we are given a very positive view towards Kurtz. "He said he was a first-class agent..." (paragraph 47) However, as the story continues, there seems to be a very mixed opinion about Kurtz. However, when Marlow sees Kurtz for himself, he is disappointed. At the inner station, Kurtz is in a state near insanity. Though Marlow truly believed that Kurtz was a great man with a very humanitarian cause, Marlow finds Kurtz to have become violent, belligerent, and almost cruel. So, it turns out that Marlow religiously followed a lie that nearly cost him his life.
The like that Marlow tells for Kurtz at the end of the novella is to Kurtz's "Intended." He told her that Kurtz's final word was her name, when in fact, it was "the horror! The horror!" I believe that he tells this to Kurtz's Intended because he does not wish to tear down the heavily reinforced idea of the Intended that Kurtz was a very decent man.
Well by this point of the game, many of the same points have been expounded upon but let me write what I believe even if it has already been said.
First Marlow is extending the lie of the Congo. He is revealing to us the lies of the Congo and the lie Marlow tells Kurtz's indendent. His lie is resonant of the lie of the Congo and the cover up achieved from this network or lies. It is most definetly a symbolic occurance.
Lastly though I personally also feel that Marlow may have also told Kurtz's indendent a lie so she could remember him the person she thought him to be. She did not have to know about Kurtz's cruel side and it was best left if her view of him was unchanged.
I think Marlow's act of telling the Intended a lie is symbolic of the web of lies the Belgians were creating in the Congo. We know that Marlow told the Intended that Kurtz's last word was her name, but why did he feel the need to abandon his ideals? I guess the truth would have been just too hard to handle for the weak and completely delusional fiancée (Marlow comes to believe that women only digest things when generously coated with sugar!). Anyway, like Chelsea said, this brings Kurtz’s Intended some comfort. The lie meshes perfectly with the false perception the Intended has of Kurtz. However, is it just the Intended or women who take comfort in reassurance? The Belgians in the Congo were not only lying about their ‘humanistic deeds’ to the rest of the world, but they were lying to themselves. When you start to lie to yourself, you begin to associate the lie with reality. Maybe this is what they needed to help them go to sleep at night. They needed to cover the truth up for themselves, so that they could take comfort in the lie. I think this is why even Marlow gets pulled into the web of lies that the Belgians weave at this time, which is stained by the blood of the innocent. The masking of the truth is recurrent in the book. We even see it in the up-keeper of the roads who is drunk when we are introduced to him. Isn’t drinking his way of escaping reality, escaping the truth that his killing of innocent people is nonsensical and immoral?
Oh, right, I forgot I said that about the ignorant teeth. Sorry Thanh, you were right!
The lie that Marlow tells for Kurtz, is his last words. He tells Kurtz's Intended that the last words Kurtz spoke was her name, instead of "the horror! the horror!" to keep his reputation as an honorable grandeur figure. Marlow does not want to break this and let loose of the 'darkness' Kurtz and the Congo truly is. Through this act, Marlow joins and becomes entangled in the lie, covering the horror that was brought upon Congo by Leopold's Belgium and keeping the positiveness alive.
As everybody else has stated, the lie is most likely that of the Congolese mission gone wry (his lie about Kurtz' last words were at the end of Part 3). If you read just a couple of sentences prior to the excerpt, it tells of a Scotch sail maker who believes in life on Mars (analogous to a lie?). It is this inability to fight that forces him to bite into something rotten. It is often noted that once you start a lie, you can hardly keep it from becoming larger and larger. The lie that Marlow is entangled in is not explicit or clear. He must find out how to keep his own beliefs true to the lie that he told. I'm not sure if this is taking it too extremely, but that is what I understood when taking into account the Scotch man.
Well first off, I want to mention the lie at hand, that Marlow is talking about in this paragraph even though it's so blatant, because reading most of these blogs, I didn't see it pop up yet. And that lie is the lie of his influence in Europe. It's not a direct lie, but a lie of silence, letting this Mephitsopheles believe that his influence in Europe actually existed. Marlow had a feeling that this would somehow come in handy when he was with Kurtz, so he let it happen, very well aware of exactly what was going on.
In defense of Marlow, I believe his partaking in the Belgian lie is just another lie of silence. Out there in the Darkness, surrounded by others with weapons, and the blindfolds they wear only make them more dangerous, it would be rather stupid and not very effective at all if he went around screaming "You're WRONG!" to all the whities in the house. If he ever physically partakes in this lie, then I missed that part.
As for the Intended, I don't believe that he told a lie to her to protect her because she was a woman and "naïve and innocent." I got the impression that the "wild and gorgeous apparition of a woman" (part 3, paragraph 13) left him with a different possibility, a different view of woman, perhaps one could go so far to daresay, a respect? Hahaha, no that's silly, she's a woman. But if not respect, something close to it, and maybe it's just possible that he doesn't tell this lie to keep her in her sugar coated world, but because he actually feels for her emotions, and telling her would only bring harm, it would do no good, no good at all. Why, if told, she may have become Miss Havisham!
Marlow's first lie in the story occurs shortly after his condemnation of dishonesty, during his encounter with the brickmaker. He realizes, after repeated questioning about the sepulchral city (presumably Brussels), that this lazy and useless brickmaker believes him to be of influence due to his aunt. He lets the brickmaker believe it, in order to push his objective of repairing his boat. He lets the man believe that rivets are of importance, but really needs them to advance his personal and less significant means. Marlow is not just telling a lie- by doing so, he is conceding to a system of lies, where lies are the only way to get things done. We realize, through the utter incapability and purposeless nature of these employees, that the perceived nature of the Congo is completely false.
Like everyone else said, the lie that Marlow tells specifically for Kurtz is the lie to the Intended. Telling her that the last thing Kurtz ever uttered was her name. It would seem that the most likely reason that he had himself lie to her (since lying was something that appalled him), was to comfort her and to allow her to stay in her own world. According to Marlow, women live in their own little world, ignorant to the real goings on- ignorant of the truth. Marlow probably felt that if he was to tell the Intended the truth, it would cause her world to crumble. He felt, that by lying, at least one person could be spared some pain and suffering.
Marlow becomes entangled in a lie when he signs on as a steamboat captain in the Congo because the entirety of what’s going on in the Congo is a lie. The whole bit about going to the Congo to civilize the natives is merely a cover up. It has nothing to do with such things, rather it is all about money and profit. Once arriving in the Congo, Marlow realizes that his suspicions were correct. It’s all about making a profit, no one is there to help the natives. That story is merely what's presented to the rest of the world so that what’s really going on can continue without disturbance from the outside.
Marlow tells two lies. He lies to Kurtz that all of his work is work for Europe. Marlow mollycuddles Kurtz. He lies to Kurtz that his "glory" work will advance Belgium. However it is plain for both that Europeans have ruined Congo. Europeans tortured the African people and treated them like they were worth nothing.
His other lie goes to Kurtz's Intended. Kurtz didn't care much for his Intended. She is a figure that sticks to the back of his mind, she is someone who he is expected to go back to. She provides him a small sense of purpose. The Intended lives off of knowing she is Kurtz's purpose. Marlow expresses to her that Kurtz's last words were her name, although it was all about Congo.
Marlow looks up to Kurtz. He is a figure without mortality (even though he dies). Kurtz was able to face all of his terrors and horrors and call out on them. If Marlow never became a captain on a steamboat whose mission was to find Kurtz, he never would have told lies. Marlow wouldn't hate being a mortal so much. He wouldn't hate death.
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