Does it help if you think about in the following manner? Think what utility means I'd go back to its definition.
Marginal Utility is the extra benefit (reward) you get say from putting in an extra unit of 'effort' (production). It could be the extra pleasure say of eating another chocolate from, or the extra knowledge you gain for every additional minute of study (all I'm getting at here is it isn't always financial, the concept transfers to many things). The first unit will give you the most 'reward'. Then you continue adding more and it gives you less and less addition reward til it approaches something quite small (it won't necessarily become zero; depends on the circumstance - in the eating chocolate example, if it makes you I'll, perhaps the marginal utility will be zero (or less!), but each bit of study (should) add knowledge hence has a positive impact).
Total utility is then the sum of every marginal utility.
In economics, it's usually looking at financial value I just thought giving human examples of how you personally feel utility/value may help.