Heart of Grizzly Man

When examining Timothy Treadwell's experiences in the Alaskan Katmai National Park and Preserve, I noticed his constant decent into madness.  Throughout his 13 summers in the Park he seemed to get increasingly obsessed with the bears and the idea that their enemy was society.  Whether it was Herzag's intention to progressivly make Treadwell seem more and more unhinged, or merely because of Timothy's lack of exposure to people, over time Treadwell lost a sense of human reality.  To me, it was almost reminiscent of Joseph Conrad's Novella, Heart of Darkness.  In the Novella, the setting- the river - acted as the vehicle for Kurtz and Marlow's transformation from an operating human in society to an animal, a beast.   Similarly, Treadwell's expeditions and loneliness seemed to drive him into extreme paranoia and slight psychosis over "intruders".  Intruders that is, any person who came into the park was  in Timothy's mind was there to harm the animals.  Not to say that some of the people actually were, but a majority, like the park service, were there to protect both the people and animals.  Inevitably, Treadwell deemed himself the "protector" of the bears, foxes and all the animals he loved so dearly.  This man, Treadwell, who used to teach children through his melodramatic and quirky mannerisms about his fascination with bears, undoubtedly, became crazed with the power and feeling of uncivilized living, exactly like Kurtz and Marlo's savageness towards the end of the river/book.  Although Treadwell did beleive in harmony, what confounded me was that he overlooked that in humans, like when he attacked the Airline employee in his journal saying "How much I hate the peoples world."  As if Timothy himself was no longer a human, or a civilized one at that.  But one thing is for certain, his installation of power over the bears was through respect, he would have done anything for those bears, even willingly give up his life.  He loved them.  Kurtz, on the other hand, ruled over his bestial natives by establishing fear alongside his power and murdered many of his people.  Therefore, Treadwell's decent into "madness" was based on a belief that all living things are innately good, differing from Kurtz's station that was barbarous and displayed an idea that everything was innately evil.