In Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, the narrator Marlow is how the reader finds out about Kurtz and the evil which Kurtz has fallen into. Marlow is a sane man, a good man, and the reader can identify with him as he goes deeper into the jungle and meets Kurtz. Kurtz stands for colonialism and the destruction it does (with good intentions), and Marlow stands for passive colonialism. He does nothing to stop what Kurtz does and even ends up admiring Kurtz. In E.L. Doctorow's The Book of Daniel, Daniel, the son of parents who were executed for treason, also shows the reader what the world can do to human beings in the name of good intentions. Just like Marlow, Daniel is a more reasonable person that the people whose lives he explores. Just like Marlow, Daniel's narration makes it easy for the reader to identify with him and to better understand the more insane world around him. Unlike Conrad, Doctorow uses both first and third person to show the corruption and the evil of politics and society.
Both of the narrators in these works are reliable and innocent. Both authors want the reader to come to a new view of life, or a part of life, so the narrators they create have to be reliable or the reader will not be able to trust the narrators and will not learn anything from them, except not to trust. Both of the narrators are also innocent. Their innocence is important because they have to come to a new view of life in the same way that the reader does. The reader must identify with the narrators for this to happen. The narrators are fairly innocent, reasonable, likable, intelligent, and trustworthy men. The reader can feel comfortable with them as the new view of life begins. This new view is not a pleasant view, but it is at least easier to take because the narrators are pleasant men. The narrators are learning that life is corrupt and people can be very cruel, evil and insane, and at the same time the reader is learning these same facts o...