Heart of

Darkness
Study Guide by Course Hero

tide to turn so they can head to sea. Three are identified by

What's Inside
j Book Basics ................................................................................................. 1
d In Context ..................................................................................................... 1
a Author Biography ..................................................................................... 2
h Characters ................................................................................................... 2
k Plot Summary ............................................................................................. 6
c Part Summaries ........................................................................................ 11
g Quotes ......................................................................................................... 21
their former professions: the Lawyer, the Accountant, and the
Director of Companies. Only Marlow is named. His account, a
retrospective of his time in Africa, dominates the narrative.
Marlow's tale is framed by the commentary of the fifth,
unidentified, man.
TENSE
Heart of Darkness is narrated primarily in the past tense.
ABOUT THE TITLE
The title alludes to the essential concerns of this modernist
novella: the mysteries of Africa, "the dark continent," from the
colonialist point of view and the equally compelling mysteries
of the ignorance, evil, and fear residing in the human heart.

l Symbols ..................................................................................................... 23

m Themes ....................................................................................................... 25 d In Context

b Modernism ................................................................................................ 26

e Suggested Reading .............................................................................. 26 Belgian Colonization of the

Congo
j Book Basics In the late 1800s Great Britain, France, Spain, Belgium, and
other European countries began seizing parts of the African
AUTHOR continent, creating artificial boundaries and colonies they
Joseph Conrad claimed as part of their empires. In the 1870s King Leopold II
(1835–1909) of Belgium led a group of investors to form a
YEAR PUBLISHED trading company to control trade along the Congo River.
1899 Leopold used trade agreements with indigenous groups as the
pretext for claiming authority over much of central Africa. That
GENRE
assumption of power was codified in the Berlin West Africa
Adventure
Conference of 1884–1885, which recognized existence of the
PERSPECTIVE AND NARRATOR Congo Free State under his control. The present Democratic
Heart of Darkness has two first-person narrators. An Republic of the Congo occupies the same area that was once
unidentified man sets the scene of the story: a group of friends the Congo Free State.
have gathered on a yacht on the River Thames, waiting for the
Heart of Darkness Study Guide
Leopold ran the colony as his personal property, separate from
the Belgian government. His rule of the Congo was particularly
harsh on the people and the environment, even by colonial
standards. Belgians enslaved the indigenous people of the
Congo and forced them to strip resources, especially ivory and
rubber, from the land and wildlife, using torture, mutilation, and
murder to enforce quotas. As a direct result of the Belgian
barbarity, at least 10 million Congolese people died between
1880 and 1920, reducing the population by half. In 1908 the
government of Belgium annexed the Congo, and some of the
worst horrors allowed under Leopold's ownership started to
diminish. The Congo won independence in 1960.
Conrad's character Marlow starts his journey into what is
presumed to be the Congo Basin in the late 1800s, at the
height of Leopold's rule.
The Ivory Trade in Central
Africa
The trade in ivory and the concomitant abuse of native peoples
and the environment provide the historical context for the
narrative of colonialist greed that is central to Heart of
Darkness. Until Leopold's seizure of the Congo Basin, the
region had been mainly overlooked as a source of ivory, which
is obtained by slaughtering elephants and removing their tusks.
From 1888 to 1890 alone, 140 tons of ivory were exported from
the Congo Free State.
a Author Biography
Joseph Conrad (Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski) was born
on December 3, 1857, in Berdichev, Ukraine. His parents were
of Polish nobility and conspired against Russian rule of their
homeland, which, after a long history of independence, had
been divided among the Russian, Austrian, and Prussian
empires. They were arrested and exiled to northern Russia
when Conrad was four years old, and both died before he
turned 13. Conrad's parents' politics and their suffering were
his earliest lessons in political oppression. These lessons
developed in Conrad a sense of the mixed nature of human
beings, with the capacity for both good and evil.
Conrad spent time in his formative years in France, supported
Copyright © 2018 Course Hero, Inc.
Author Biography 2
by family and influential family friends, not unlike Marlow's
situation in Africa. By age 14 he had decided he wanted to go
to sea, and he did so in his late teens, entering the French
merchant marine. In his autobiographical work A Personal
Record (1912), Conrad observes there was "no precedent ... for
a boy of my nationality and antecedents taking a ... standing
jump out of his racial surroundings and associations." Conrad
learned English during his time at sea, and, although he might
have found a wider audience had he written in French, he
notes in A Personal Record that he did not choose English: "It
was I who was adopted by the genius of the language, an
adoption by English ... too mysterious to explain." His service as
a deckhand on a British freighter brought him to England in
1878. He would return to England when not at sea and, after
marrying, would continue to live there.
In 1890 Conrad spent six months traveling in the Congo as a
steamboat officer. When he returned he was exhausted, sick
with malaria, and deeply troubled by all he had experienced. He
started writing full time in 1894 and adopted the English
version of his name, Joseph Conrad, the following year. In 1899
Heart of Darkness was published serially in three issues of
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. His writing brought attention
to the barbarity of Belgian colonial control of central Africa
established in the 1880s to exploit the region. In 1903 a British
consul solicited Conrad's support in exposing these atrocities
to the public.
Conrad continued writing until his death in England on August
3, 1924. His other works include Lord Jim (1900), also narrated
by the character Marlow; Nostromo (1904), and The Secret
Agent (1907), among other novels and stories. They are early
examples of modernist fiction.
h Characters
Marlow
Charlie Marlow is the protagonist of this novella. He has been
interested in maps since he was a boy. His boyhood
fascination lies mostly in the empty, "unexplored" places of the
African continent. He tells of the time he got a job piloting a
steamer in what is presumably the Congo river basin. Through
this journey Marlow is exposed to the brutality and hypocrisy
of imperialism and meets the other main character of the story,
Heart of Darkness Study Guide Characters 3

the depraved and dying Kurtz, who has been unhinged by the
darkness and solitude of the jungle.
Kurtz
self, as he, too, is compelled to see and explore Africa. He
carries a manual on seamanship, linking him to Marlow, the
seaman. His hero worship of Kurtz contrasts with Marlow's
more balanced view, as Marlow sees Kurtz as a man with
eloquence but one who has lost his moral compass.

Kurtz is the chief agent at the Inner Station. The Company

wishes to relieve Kurtz from his duty, ostensibly because his
unorthodox methods for obtaining more ivory than other
agents have been questioned. Kurtz is a gifted and eloquent
man. Some think he believes in the Company's stated goals of
educating and enhancing the lives of the indigenous people.
However, Kurtz has become as barbarous as any Company
agent. Yet, he is still revered by the natives.
Helmsman
The helmsman is a proud, athletic African belonging to a
coastal tribe. Marlow calls him an "unstable fool" yet misses
him when he is killed. They develop a partnership or at least an
interdependency and Marlow feels a certain respect for him,
although his comments on the helmsman are tinged with
racism.

Jungle
The jungle acts as the antagonist of the novella. It corrupts
Kurtz and comes close to corrupting Marlow. Marlow says in
reference to the jungle in Part 1 that it is as if nature itself is
trying to ward off intruders.

Manager
The manager of the Central Station is a cold, calculating man
who has enslaved a great many native people and is
completely indifferent to their suffering. He forces them to help
him extract ivory, keeps them chained up, fails to feed them,
and works them to exhaustion and death. He is jealous of Kurtz
because Kurtz sends down more ivory than he does, and he
makes plans to get Kurtz relieved of his post. His only
motivations are greed and power.

Russian
The Russian is a young man who, in the spirit of adventure and
the "need to exist," journeys to Africa. Marlow calls him
"gallantly, thoughtlessly alive." When he encounters Kurtz at
the Inner Station, the Russian becomes devoted to him, sitting
at his feet and absorbing Kurtz's words and ideas. The Russian
dresses in a patchwork of colorful cloth, so that when Marlow
first encounters him, he compares him to a harlequin, a
traditional comic character from the Italian stage. The Russian
serves as a foil to Marlow, perhaps representing his younger

Copyright © 2018 Course Hero, Inc.

Heart of Darkness Study Guide Characters 4

Character Map

Hero worship

Disdain

Jungle
Antagonist Drawn
toward and
destroyed by

Attraction,
destroyer

Awe, fear,
Grudging
apprehension, lack
respect
of understanding
Russian Kurtz
Alone in the jungle; Inner Station agent
worships Kurtz Trust Trust

Bemusement Marlow Fascination,

Protagonist; pity
steamer pilot

Threatened by

Fondness Suspicion
Seeking Uneasiness
guidance

Helmsman
Manager
African who steers
Central Station manager
steamer for Marlow

Main Character

Other Major Character

Minor Character

Copyright © 2018 Course Hero, Inc.

Heart of Darkness Study Guide
Full Character List
Character Description
Marlow is the protagonist, a British
steamboat pilot who signs on with a
Marlow
Belgian company whose business is to
extract ivory from the center of Africa.
Kurtz is the evasive Company agent at
Kurtz the Inner Station whom the Company
wishes to relieve from duty.
The jungle is the ever-​present
antagonist in the story—a fierce, riotous
Jungle darkness. It is a place that resists labels
such as black, white, primitive, and
civilized.
The manager is the contemptible leader
Manager
of the Company's Central Station.
The Russian is a young man who has
traveled alone to the Inner Station in a
Russian
spirit of adventure and found Kurtz,
whom he idolizes.
The helmsman is the African man who
Helmsman
steers the steamboat on the river.
The unnamed narrator is a character in
the story. He frames the story told by
Narrator
Marlow and occasionally comments on
it.
The brickmaker is in charge of making
bricks at the Central Station, but he
Brickmaker cannot make bricks because he does
not have the appropriate materials. He
is also a spy for the station manager.
Copyright © 2018 Course Hero, Inc.
Characters 5
The pilgrims are Company agents,
called pilgrims by Marlow because they
carry wooden staffs, as Christian
pilgrims of the Middle Ages had done.
They also carry rifles, which they are
ready to use. A skittish and fearful lot,
Pilgrims they can be seen as pilgrims in the
sense that they are apparently true
believers in the Company's so-​called
civilizing mission but are most
interested in exploiting the natural
resources, including ivory, from the
region.
The Central Station manager's uncle
leads the Eldorado Exploring
Manager's Expedition, his own effort to find his
Uncle fortune by exploiting Africa's resources,
and agrees with his nephew about the
need to get rid of Kurtz.
The Company accountant is a Company
official Marlow meets at the coastal
station before heading to the interior.
Company Committed to the Company's goals of
Accountant maximizing profits, he speaks
approvingly of Kurtz's prodigious output
and expects Kurtz to rise to become
one of the Company's managers.
The crew are the African men who work
on the steamer. They gather wood for
fuel, put wood in the boiler, watch for
Crew danger, and take up arms when needed
to protect the steamer, Marlow, the
Central Station manager, and the
pilgrims.
The fireman was a member of the
steamer's crew who made sure the
boiler was working properly. Marlow
Fireman
feels he does a good job because he
was trained but does not understander
the technology; he sees it as magic.
The Intended is Kurtz's fiancée who
Intended
awaits his return in Europe.
Marlow's aunt recommends him for the
pilot's job with the Company. She
Aunt accepts the idea of the "civilizing
mission" that is Europeans' ideological
justification for imperialism.
Heart of Darkness Study Guide
The doctor examines Marlow before he
leaves for the Africa. He asks Marlow
Doctor
odd questions and suggests that going
to Africa is an unsettling experience.
The African woman is a beautiful
African
indigenous native woman presumed to
Woman
be Kurtz's lover.
The Company official visits Marlow after
his return to Brussels in hopes of
Company gaining any intelligence Kurtz may have
Official gathered in his travels in Africa. He has
no interest in Kurtz's report, which has
nothing to do with commerce.
Kurtz's cousin also visits Marlow back in
Kurtz's
Brussels; he expresses great admiration
Cousin
for Kurtz and his talents.
The journalist is a former colleague of
Kurtz's who also visits Marlow when he
Journalist
returns to Brussels. Marlow gives him
Kurtz's report.
These Africans act and move as a
Kurtz's group (like the crew and the pilgrims).
Followers They seem to worship Kurtz as a deity
and to follow his orders.
The Director of Companies pilots the
yacht on the Thames on which Marlow
Director of
tells his story. His company is not the
Companies
same as the Belgian company Marlow
travels to Africa for.
The Accountant is one of the group on
Accountant
the yacht who listens to Marlow's story.
The Lawyer is one of the group on the
Lawyer
yacht who listens to Marlow's story.
k Plot Summary
Heart of Darkness is set in the 1890s at the height of European
colonization of the African continent. As the novella opens, five
friends sit waiting for the tide to change on the Thames River
so that they can head out to sea. They are used to telling one
another stories, and, as they sit on the yacht, Marlow, the best
storyteller of the group, begins a tale by saying, in reference to
Copyright © 2018 Course Hero, Inc.
Plot Summary 6
Britain, "And this also ... has been one of the dark places of the
earth." His words set the dark, brooding tone of the novella.
Much of the rest of the book is told from Marlow's perspective,
as he relates an experience he had the prior year. He tells his
friends that once he signed on to pilot a paddle-wheeled
steamboat upriver in central Africa. While the European city
and the African river, river basin, and country all remain
unnamed in the novella, Conrad likely envisioned the story in
Brussels, Belgium, and in the Congo. Marlow explains that he
undertook the trip while working for a European business
operation known simply as "the Company," which was
extracting ivory from the interior of Africa for profit. The
Company hired Marlow in Europe and gave him the task of
picking up one of its agents in Africa, a man named Kurtz, and
relieve him of his duty. Apparently Kurtz employed
questionable methods for consistently getting more ivory than
any of the other Company stations.
With this goal in mind, Marlow travels to central Africa on a
French steamer. As the ship heads toward the river, it hugs the
African coast close enough that Marlow can see see the lush,
dark-green jungle. Marlow disembarks at the coastal Outer
Station and then walks 200 miles (320 kilometers) to the
Company's Central Station, where the river is navigable and his
steamer is supposed to be waiting for him. "Camp, cook, sleep,
strike camp, march," is the journey Marlow describes.
Arriving at the Central Station, Marlow is surprised and
disappointed to learn that his steamer is sunk at the bottom of
the river three hours upstream. He meets the Central Station
manager, who talks with him at length.
The manager tells Marlow that the situation is very grave at the
Inner Station, where Kurtz is agent and to which Marlow is
meant to pilot the steamer. Marlow is told it will take three
months to repair the ship and head to the Inner Station. As
these days pass, Marlow concludes that the delays are likely
intentional; the manager knows that Kurtz is ill and hopes he
will die before Marlow reaches him.
Although there is a brickmaker at the station, and some station
agents (whom Marlow calls pilgrims because they carry long
staffs) have been assigned to help him, he had not made any
bricks for a year due to the lack of some crucial material,
though Marlow doesn't know what it is. When the brickmaker
begins pumping Marlow for information, Marlow decides that
the brickmaker must be a spy for the manager. Marlow
overhears a conversation between the station manager and his
Heart of Darkness Study Guide Plot Summary 7

uncle, who is leading an expedition into the jungle in search of to a journalist for publication and his papers to the fiancée
wealth. The two exchange dark hints about Kurtz's character Kurtz left behind in Europe. In addition, Marlow lies to Kurtz's
and behavior. fiancée regarding Kurtz's final words as a matter of sympathy,
telling her that Kurtz uttered her name.
Marlow, meanwhile, is unable to repair the ship without
receiving the needed rivets. Eventually he does repair the This is the end of Marlow's tale, and the action returns to the
steamer and, along with the manager and the pilgrims, heads five friends on the yacht. He ceases talking and sits apart
upriver. Eight miles (20 kilometers) from the Inner Station, the quietly. The narrator notices that the Thames River is flowing
steamer is attacked by native fighters. The attack does not under an overcast sky "into the heart of an immense darkness."
stop the ship from progressing, but Marlow's helmsman, whom
he respected, is killed. Marlow pitches the helmsman's body
overboard to avoid having it eaten by the native crew
members, whom Marlow says are cannibalistic; this crew is
nearly emaciated because the Company has not bothered to
provide food for the month-long journey.

Marlow pauses in the narrative to talk about Kurtz. When they

eventually meet, Kurtz tells Marlow some of his ideas; he had
been asked by the Society for the Suppression of Savage
Customs to write a report with his recommendations for
bringing white civilization to Africa. Marlow thinks he has gone
mad, losing his self-control in the solitude and darkness.

Arriving at the Inner Station, Marlow is met by a Russian man

dressed in colorfully patched clothes that make him look like a
harlequin. Marlow gets his first indication that something
strange is going on at the Inner Station. Kurtz is not there, and
the Russian tells Marlow that Kurtz often spends time in the
jungle visiting with the native people or gathering ivory. He
suggests Kurtz uses extreme methods to secure the ivory and
says the native people adore Kurtz. They do not want him
taken from them and thus they attacked the steamer on its trip
upriver. Marlow observes a fence of posts outside the station
with severed human heads atop them.

When Kurtz arrives he is on a stretcher, and he is very ill. The

manager pretends to be sorry, but Marlow knows he is being
disingenuous as he also criticizes Kurtz. Marlow senses that
the manager thinks Marlow is on Kurtz's side and does not
trust him. As they begin the trip downriver to the coast, Kurtz is
in the process of dying. Marlow's censure of Kurtz is
moderated by Marlow's understanding of how Kurtz fell into his
madness. Because of these mixed feelings toward Kurtz,
Marlow agrees to protect Kurtz's papers and his reputation
after Marlow returns to Europe. Kurtz dies on the trip
downriver; the last thing Marlow hears him say is, "The horror!
The horror!"

Back at Company headquarters, Marlow delivers Kurtz's report

Copyright © 2018 Course Hero, Inc.

Heart of Darkness Study Guide Plot Summary 8

Plot Diagram

Climax

11

10
12
9
Falling Action

Rising Action 8
13
7

6 14
5
15
4
Resolution
3

2
1

Introduction

9. Marlow arrives at the Inner Station.

Introduction
10. Marlow finds Kurtz in the jungle.

1. Resting on a yacht on the Thames, Marlow begins his tale.

Climax

Rising Action 11. Kurtz dies on the steamer, crying, "The horror! The horror!"

2. Marlow gets a job with an ivory trading company.

3. Marlow travels to Africa, stopping at every port.

Falling Action
4. At the outer station, Marlow hears of Kurtz.
12. Heading downriver, Marlow contemplates Kurtz's life.
5. Marlow hikes 200 miles (320 km) to the Central Station.
13. Marlow gives Kurtz's report to a journalist.
6. Marlow learns why the manager wants to pick up Kurtz.
14. With Kurtz's fiancée, Marlow protects Kurtz's memory.
7. Marlow pilots the repaired steamer upriver.

8. The steamer is attacked on the river.

Copyright © 2018 Course Hero, Inc.

Heart of Darkness Study Guide Plot Summary 9

Resolution

15. Having told his tale, Marlow reflects quietly on the yacht.

Copyright © 2018 Course Hero, Inc.

Heart of Darkness Study Guide Plot Summary 10

Timeline of Events

1899

Aboard the Nellie on the Thames River, Marlow tells of

his time in Africa.

Some years before

Marlow goes to city to get a steamer-pilot job in Africa.

Some time later

Marlow travels to the outer station, where he hears

about Kurtz.

Ten days later

Marlow and 60 men march 200 miles (320 kilometers) to

the Company's Central Station.

Three months later

Marlow pilots the repaired steamer upriver.

Two months later

The steamer arrives at the Inner Station.

Some time later

Marlow begins the return trip downriver, during which

Kurtz dies.

Some time later

Marlow returns to Brussels with Kurtz's papers and talks

of Kurtz with three people.

Some time later

Marlow returns to Brussels with Kurtz's papers and visits

Kurtz's fiancée.

1899

Aboard the Nellie Marlow finishes the story of his time in

Africa.

Copyright © 2018 Course Hero, Inc.

Heart of Darkness Study Guide
c Part Summaries
Conrad divided Heart of Darkness into three parts. This study
guide breaks down those parts further by location and plot
points for close summary and analysis.
Part 1 (Framing the Story)
Summary
As Heart of Darkness opens, five friends sit on a yacht, waiting
for the tide to change on England's Thames River so they can
head out to sea. It is 1891, and European colonization of the
African continent is at its height. The five friends are the
Director of Companies, the Lawyer, the Accountant, Charlie
Marlow (a seaman and an adventurer), and an unnamed
narrator of the story, whose words begin and end the novella
and thus frame Marlow's tale. The friends are used to telling
stories to one another.
Marlow, the best yarn spinner of the group, begins his story by
saying, "And this also ... has been one of the dark places of the
earth," and then discusses the attitudes of the Romans who
conquered Britain in ancient times. At the end of the section,
he begins to tell his tale. He speaks of a time some years
before when he once turned "freshwater sailor" and begins
what the narrator calls one of "Marlow's inconclusive
experiences." Marlow talks of being frustrated over not having
a ship and then seeing a map in a shop window and
remembering a place he wanted to explore as a child. He had
been drawn to a particular "inviting" blank place on the map.
Although much of that "blank space of delightful mystery" had
since been filled in by explorers, leaving the area "a place of
darkness," there is a river, one that resembles "an immense
snake uncoiled," that remains mysterious. He recalls that
there's a trading company with business on the river and
resolves to seek employment with the Company.
Analysis
Marlow contrasts the darkness of ancient Britain with the
present, saying, "Light came out of this river since," but adds
that this light, which is civilization, is like "lightning in the
Copyright © 2018 Course Hero, Inc.
Part Summaries 11
clouds." In commenting, "We live in the flicker ... darkness was
here yesterday," he suggests that the darkness is not so
distant and that the brief flash of illumination or enlightenment
may not last. This passage both connects modern humans to
the ancient darkness and foreshadows the triumph of
darkness over the so-called civilized Europeans at the end of
the narrative.
As Marlow speaks about why the Romans felt it was
acceptable to plunder England, a people they considered
savage, he foreshadows the way in which the Company does
the same in Africa. He says that the ancient Romans were
"conquerors" and that for conquest all that is required is "brute
force." Modern Europeans, in contrast, have a "devotion to
efficiency." This suggests that their conquest is more thorough
than the Roman one, introducing the idea of the exploitation of
Africa and its people. Modern imperialists, arrogant in their
power, believe they have a better life to offer the "savage"
peoples of Africa, although King Leopold's version of
colonization is particularly barbarous.
The first section also introduces the darkness of Africa when
Marlow speaks of the unnamed river. Its mystery attracted him
as a child and lures him at this time as well. He compares the
course of the river to a snake, which "charmed" Marlow and
convinced him to seek a job with the Company. The snake and
associated images foreshadow evil and danger. The snake
recalls Satan, who took the appearance of a serpent when
tempting Eve in the story of the fall of humankind recounted in
Genesis. Marlow also said that the river "fascinated me as a
snake would a bird," adding, "silly bird," because some snakes
are dangerous to birds. The metaphor is a warning about
succumbing to the heart of darkness and being swallowed, as
happens to Kurtz. Finally, in saying that the snake-like river
"charmed" him, he reverses the dynamic of the popular figure
of the snake charmer. Here, human is not in control of nature,
but vice versa.
The narrator says that Marlow is not a typical storyteller. When
he spins a yarn, he envelops it "as a glow brings out a haze." He
means the tale is not straightforward; its meaning will be hazy,
and different listeners may interpret it in different ways. The
"glow" and the earlier image of lightning also suggest a kind of
understanding that is not easily articulated. The narrator also
wryly calls Marlow's story "inconclusive," and yet he relates it,
suggesting there is meaning to it. Readers must construct
meaning from Marlow's tale on their own.
Heart of Darkness Study Guide
Part 1 (Marlow Seeks a
Position)
Summary
Marlow travels to the continent to seek a job with the
Company. His aunt knows someone who works for the
Company and is able to introduce him.
Marlow applies for a position made vacant when a captain
named Fresleven is killed by the native people. In a flash
forward (a narrative technique in which the story skips ahead
before coming back to the present), Marlow tells how he later
encounters the corpse of the man in the jungle, unburied but
surrounded by grass high enough to hide his bones. Marlow
arrives at the Company offices and finds two women knitting
with black wool and looking at him with downcast eyes. He is
ushered into a room, signs some papers, and is examined by a
doctor. The doctor asks whether there is any madness in
Marlow's family and tells him that it would be interesting for
science to watch the mental changes that take place in people
"out there."
Marlow goes to say good-bye to his aunt before taking his job
as a pilot on a steamer. His aunt relishes the idea that the
Company is there to, as she sees it, wean the savages from
their horrid ways. This assessment makes Marlow
uncomfortable because he knows that the Company is there to
make a profit, not civilize the population.
Analysis
Conrad's text does not name the the city of these early
scenes, but most scholars consider the city to be Brussels,
Belgium. He also does not explicitly identify the Congo River,
though it is widely accepted to be the location of the
Company's trading stations. By not naming the exact locations
in the novella, Conrad implies that this story of depravity, theft,
and barbarism could take place at any time and in any place. It
is a universal story of condemnation and serves as a
cautionary tale. Evil has the potential to arise in the hearts of
humans everywhere.
He refers to it as the "sepulchral city" and says it looks to him
Copyright © 2018 Course Hero, Inc.
Part Summaries 12
like a "whited sepulchre." With these comments, Conrad makes
reference to the Gospel of Matthew 23:27, in which Jesus
compares the Jewish Pharisees to "whitewashed tombs" that
look beautiful "on the outside" but hold the "bones of the dead."
In that passage Jesus charged the Pharisees with being
hypocrites, more interested in collecting taxes than in
upholding God's law. Brussels, a city of commerce, is thus a
city of hypocrites, guided by imperialist greed and its
accompanying abuses rather than by the proclaimed civilizing
mission. This point is underscored by Marlow's last
conversation with his aunt. She is thrilled that he is about to
join the Company and promote what she sees as its glorious
civilizing mission. Marlow counters that the Company cares
only about making profits. Should there be any uncertainty as
to which view is correct, he reflects on how "out of touch with
truth women are." This comment, albeit sexist, destroys any
inclination to accept the aunt's view.
The white city is further associated with a tomb and with death
in the image of the two women knitting funeral shrouds in the
Company offices. The whiteness of the "whited sepulchre"
serves as a false veneer covering the darkness inside. The
concept of whiteness covering darkness may also suggest that
skin color is of little consequence in an ethical world.
Further foreshadowing takes places when the secretary in the
office is "full of desolation and sympathy." Marlow also runs
into a Company employee with whom he shares a drink. This
man "glorified the Company's business," but when Marlow asks
why he himself does not make the journey to Africa, the man
says, "I am not such a fool as I look." The Company's business
may be glorious, but let someone else do it. The doctor who
tells Marlow it would be interesting to watch mental changes
"on the spot" warns Marlow, and the reader, that something
momentous could happen "out there." His comment that the
Europeans who go to Africa change on the "inside," in their
minds, foreshadows the madness that overtakes Kurtz.
Part 1 (Journey to the Outer
Station)
Summary
Marlow leaves for Africa on a French steamer that stops at
Heart of Darkness Study Guide
ports along the African coast. At one point the steamer
encounters a man-of-war (an armed sailing ship) firing at native
people hidden in the jungle. Sometimes the steamer travels in
and out of rivers near the shore.
Thirty days after leaving, the steamer anchors in an African
capital city, and Marlow books passage on a smaller steamer
to travel 30 miles (48 kilometers) upriver. Here, he sees a
forced-labor camp where black men, who are chained
together, build a railway. Explosives go off here and there. The
workers hide from the steamer as best they can, but Marlow
observes that they seem to be dying of disease and starvation.
As Marlow nears the Outer Station's buildings, he encounters a
white man—the Company's chief accountant—who is full of life
and elegance. Occasionally a sick person is brought into his
office and placed on a trundle bed; the accountant complains
when the patient groans. The accountant is the first person to
tell Marlow about Kurtz, describing him as a "first-class agent"
who sends in as much ivory as all the other agents combined.
Analysis
Through the use of personification (attributing human
characteristics to inanimate objects or ideas), Conrad
animates the jungle, deepening the motif of darkness and
creating a sense of foreboding. An example of this technique
occurs when Marlow imagines that "Nature herself had tried to
ward off intruders" and that the contorted mangroves "seemed
to writhe at us."
Verbal irony is a literary technique in which the intent of the
words in a text carry the opposite meaning. A character may or
may not know the full significance of the words, but the careful
reader does. There are several examples of verbal irony in this
section of the novella:
Marlow says, "I also was a part of these high and just
proceedings." The reader knows that the proceedings are
the opposite of high and just and that Marlow is expressing
concern over what is really going on.
Marlow says the vast hole he encounters must be
"connected with the philanthropic desire of giving the
criminals something to do." Again, the reader knows that the
Company agents are not acting with charitable, or
philanthropic, intentions.
Verbal irony works in this section because Marlow relates this
Copyright © 2018 Course Hero, Inc.
Part Summaries 13
story to his friends after he returns from Africa. He is able to
reflect on the experience, knowing full well the proceedings
are not just or philanthropic.
Part 1 (At the Central Station)
Summary
Marlow makes a 200-mile (500-kilometer) trek to the Central
Station with one white man and almost 60 African men. He is
lonely and bored on a journey that takes 15 days. When the
crew hobbles into the Central Station, Marlow learns that the
paddle-wheeled steamboat he is meant to pilot to the Inner
Station is lying at the bottom of the river. The station manager
tells Marlow that two days earlier he had left to go to the
stations upriver with a volunteer skipper in command of the
boat but they had run over stones in the riverbed that tore
holes in the boat's hull.
Marlow meets with the general manager of the Central
Station—a man who inspires uneasiness. The manager is
agitated about the situation at the Inner Station, although he
echoes the accountant's assessment of Kurtz, calling him "an
exceptional man, of the greatest importance to the Company."
A fire burns up a grass shed. Marlow sees one of the pilgrims,
or Company agents, taking a small bucket to bring water to put
out the fire. He only adds a quart of water, though, and Marlow
notices that the bucket has a hole in it. An African man is
accused of setting the fire and is beaten severely. Marlow
hears his moans during the night.
Over his months at the Central Station awaiting the repair of
the steamer, Marlow comes to view the Company employees
as foolish and life there as absurd. One man is supposedly in
charge of a small group of pilgrims whose job is to make
bricks, but there are no brickmaking materials, so no work is
done. The Company employees show no interest in work but
only jealousy. There is backbiting and bickering.
Marlow has a long conversation with the brickmaker, whom he
dislikes. In that man's quarters, Marlow sees a curious painting
the brickmaker said Kurtz did. Marlow is at first annoyed when
the brickmaker prods him for information, but he eventually
realizes the brickmaker thinks that Marlow has connections to
top officers of the Company. The brickmaker thinks that Kurtz
Heart of Darkness Study Guide
and Marlow represent "the gang of virtue"—people who believe
the Company propaganda. Because the brickmaker believes
that Kurtz will rise higher in the organization if Kurtz is left in
charge of the Inner Station, he tries to ingratiate himself to
Marlow. When Marlow asks the brickmaker about Kurtz, the
brickmaker gives a glowing report: "He is a prodigy," the
brickmaker explains, "an emissary of pity and science and
progress, and devil know what else."
Marlow waits for rivets he can use to attach new steel plates
to the hull of the steamer to repair it. One night he climbs
onboard the steamer and meets one of the Africans, the
foreman of a work crew. Marlow tells the man that they will
have the rivets soon, and the two of them dance on the boat's
deck. As time passes white men in fresh clothes arrive,
followed by a team of black men carrying tents, camp stools,
and other supplies for a journey. The group is called the
Eldorado Exploring Expedition, and the station manager's
uncle heads up the team. They say they have come "to tear
treasure out of the bowels of the land."
Analysis
This section reveals the themes of hypocrisy and indifference
in the details Marlow relates:
The brickmakers have no materials they need to build
bricks.
One of the pilgrims fills a pail that has a hole in the bottom
with only a quart of water to douse the flames.
Though Marlow makes many requests for rivets from the
Outer Station, which has plenty of them, and many
deliveries of trade goods are received from the Outer
Station, the rivets are never delivered.
The term pilgrim is another example of verbal irony. Marlow
uses the term to refer to the Company agents because they
carry staffs, as Christian pilgrims did in the Middle Ages. While
the name and the staffs suggest holiness, they actually
underscore the hypocrisy of these men, who claim to have
come as noble travelers but actually want to pillage the land.
Their presence is "as unreal as everything else," Marlow says,
as unreal as "the philanthropic pretence of the whole concern."
The themes of hypocrisy and indifference also come out in
Marlow's conversations with the brickmaker, after which he
tells his listeners on the Thames how much he hates lies:
"There is a taint of death, a flavor of mortality in lies," he
Copyright © 2018 Course Hero, Inc.
Part Summaries 14
concludes. This is a text in which language itself is corrupted,
paralleling the corrupt practices recounted in the narrative.
The brutality of imperialism is underscored by the treatment of
the African man accused of burning the hut. There is no
semblance of a trial or any attempt to determine if he really
was responsible. He is believed to be responsible, and that is
enough to warrant punishment. That punishment is harsh and
continues for some time. The words of one of the Company
agents captures the imperialist mentality:
"Transgression—punishment—bang!" They must be "pitiless,"
he says, making an example of the man to prevent any such
rebellion in the future. The reputed forces of civilization, it
seems, have no use for seeking truth or dispensing real justice.
They only wish to maintain order and command obedience.
The theme of civilization versus barbarism appears in this
chapter in Kurtz's painting, hanging in the brickmaker's
quarters. The painting shows a woman "draped and
blindfolded" carrying a bright torch. Its background is
"sombre—almost black." The painting seems to visually
represent the civilizing mission. The woman, blindfolded (as the
figure of justice is often depicted), carries a torch; light is
usually associated with knowledge, learning, and civilization.
The dark background represents the barbarism this civilizing
mission is meant to combat. The painting has an unsettling
detail though. The torchlight makes the woman's face look
"sinister," or evil and malevolent. Near the end of the book,
Marlow says he had thought Kurtz might be "a painter who
wrote for the papers, or ... a journalist who could paint." This
assessment suggests the painting was skillfully done, and the
sinister expression was not due to inability to execute an
intention. Perhaps it reflects Kurtz's ambivalence about the
civilizing mission.
Corruption and greed are rampant as well. The pilgrims have
no interest in doing any work, only in being sent to a trading
post "so that they could earn percentages." The brickmaker
tries to befriend Marlow in hopes of advancing; at the same
time, he is the station manager's spy and all the other
Company agents avoid him. Marlow concludes that the
steamer might have been intentionally damaged and repairs
intentionally delayed to postpone his trip to the Inner Station.
While the station manager speaks at first about Kurtz and
other station agents being ill and the need to get the steamer
repaired so that Marlow can reach them and assist them, he
does nothing to obtain the needed rivets or hurry those repairs.
He seems to hope that in the delay Kurtz will either die or
Heart of Darkness Study Guide
become incapacitated and therefore no longer be a threat to
the manager's position with the Company.
Marlow becomes so disgusted with them all that he falls into
corruption himself, though in a minor way, comparatively
speaking. He allows himself to lie, even though he detests lying,
by letting the brickmaker think he is an associate of Kurtz's. He
develops sympathy for Kurtz becasue he is so appalled by the
brickmaker. Relating this development leads to an aside and a
pause in the story, in which Marlow reflects on the inadequacy
of storytelling: "It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream,"
he says, which is a "vain attempt," because no retelling can
"convey the dream-sensation." Nevertheless, he resumes the
story. He is compelled to relate it, perhaps because he himself
is still wrestling with what the story means.
Part 2 (The Manager and His
Uncle)
Summary
One night, as Marlow rests by lying down on the deck of the
steamer, he overhears the station manager and his uncle
talking. The manager complains that he has been instructed to
send Marlow to the Inner Station, and he does not like it and
wants him fired. Kurtz is sending more prime ivory to the
Company than any other agent, which makes the station
manager look bad. At the same time, he objects because Kurtz
seems to accept the idea of the civilizing mission. He quotes
Kurtz as saying, "Each station should be like a beacon on the
road ... for humanizing, improving, instructing." He finds Kurtz's
noble words absurd and a nuisance.
Shortly after this exchange, the unprepared Eldorado
Expedition leaves the station with the manager's uncle in
charge. Some time later word comes that the donkeys that
carry their supplies are all dead. Marlow never finds out what
happens to the people he calls "the less valuable animals"—the
uncle and his gang.
Analysis
Kurtz is a double threat to the station manager, surpassing his
output in ivory and apparently expressing the Company's high-
Copyright © 2018 Course Hero, Inc.
Part Summaries 15
minded ideals. The manager calls Kurtz's high-sounding words
about a moral purpose in Africa pestiferous (from pestilence),
which means "harboring infection and disease." The word is
also related to pest, "inconveniently annoying." To the
manager, morality is an inconvenience. In him, greed outweighs
any higher moral purpose.
As the two men discuss Kurtz's role in the Company, the uncle
implies that the jungle may take care of their problem. He
suggests that Kurtz, who has been in the jungle a long time and
is now ill, may simply die. Here, the reader gets one of the
clearest references thus far to the darkness that runs through
the novella. As the uncle gestures toward the jungle, he seems
to appeal, Marlow thinks, "to the lurking death, to the hidden
evil, to the profound darkness of its heart." The uncle's words
provide foreshadowing of Kurtz's end as well. In gesturing to
the jungle, he says, "Trust to this," a phrase he repeats. In the
end the jungle does consume Kurtz; the jungle, the darkness,
kills him. In this passage the "darkness" represents the wild,
mysterious force of the jungle and the continent that
Europeans seem incapable of understanding.
Marlow's reaction to the news of the Eldorado Expedition
reflects his own indifference to people he judges to be corrupt.
While it is only known that the donkeys all died, the humans
probably did as well. Marlow notes that he does not care; he is
more excited at that point in meeting Kurtz. The expedition's
name contains a reference to the Spanish conquistadors'
search for "El Dorado," a legendary city of gold, in the
Americas in the 16th century. This name presents the African
expedition as one doomed to fail and tainted by false hope, just
as the conquistadors had been.
Part 2 (Traveling up the River)
Summary
The steamer is finally repaired, and Marlow takes it up the river.
It takes two months to reach the Inner Station. As he travels he
remarks on the riot of vegetation, the hippos and alligators, and
the difficulty of finding a safe channel and avoiding sunken
stones and snags in the shallow river. Three or four pilgrims
and the manager are onboard, and along the way Marlow picks
up 20 native people (whom he calls cannibals) to push the
steamer when the river is too shallow. They pass some small
Heart of Darkness Study Guide
European outposts and often hear drums from villages on the
shore. Marlow begins to find it hard to focus on reality and
feels he is in a dreamlike place.
Helping Marlow to manage the steamer is a black man, "an
improved specimen" in Marlow's words, who is put in charge of
stoking the boiler. About 50 miles (130 kilometers) short of the
Inner Station, the crew comes upon a reed hut and the tatters
of what had been a flag, marking a neat pile of wood. The crew
needs the wood for the boiler and so stops to investigate.
There is a note telling them to "approach cautiously." This note
is signed; though it is illegible, it appears not to be Kurtz's name
as it is longer. There is also an old book titled An Inquiry into
Some Points of Seamanship by a British seaman. Marlow
believes the notes in the book are written in cipher or code.
Marlow's curiosity about Kurtz increases as he and his crew
travel through the primeval wilderness.
Analysis
The imagery of the river basin is vivid and engulfing as the
steamer travels "back to the earliest beginnings of the world,
when vegetation rioted on the earth" and hippos and alligators
sun themselves on silvery sandbanks. The narrative is ripe with
sound as "twenty cannibals [splash] around and [push]" the
steamboat in shallow waters to "the ponderous beat of the
stern-wheel," and the drums often accompany the ship as it
moves along the river. He could also hear the "ring of ivory,"
probably from the pilgrims' hopeful conversation. While Marlow
notes these sounds, the overwhelming sense is one of quiet.
He uses the words silence, stillness, and quiet to describe the
ominous, brooding mystery of the jungle.
The theme of racism emerges strongly in this section. Marlow
considers whether the black people he sees are human. He
and those in the Company view Africans as inhuman, no better
than animals: "They howled and leaped, and spun, and made
horrid faces," says Marlow. "What thrilled you," he goes on in
what seems to be a growing realization of his faulty thinking,
"was the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and
passionate uproar." This idea of kinship challenges the racist
European notions of civilization that have been evident to this
point. The language here raises the question of whether
Conrad was expressing racism or whether he was accurately
portraying the blatant racism of the time and thus encouraging
readers to reject it.
Copyright © 2018 Course Hero, Inc.
Part Summaries 16
Part 2 (Attack on the Steamer)
Summary
About eight miles (20 kilometers) from Marlow's destination at
the Inner Station, the manager wants to stop moving until
morning. But by morning a heavy fog sets in, and those on the
steamer hear shrieks cut through the silence. Contemplating
the possibility of attack, Marlow hauls in the chain so that the
steamboat can move ahead quickly if necessary. The headman
of the crew is more interested in catching one of the potential
attackers so the crew can eat him. They are starving. Marlow
says he would have been horrified except that he knows how
hungry the crew is. The black crew members have only had
some rotting hippo meat that they brought along and a few
pieces of brass wire they were given to trade for food in
villages that have largely been abandoned along the way.
As the fog lifts, Marlow and his helmsman head upriver. A mile
and a half (4 kilometers) from the Inner Station and only 10 feet
(3.5 meters) from the bank, the steamer is attacked. The
pilgrims and the helmsman respond with rifle fire. Marlow
speeds ahead but finds that his helmsman has been struck by
a spear and lies dying at his feet. As soon as he can, Marlow
tips the helmsman's body overboard. He cannot bear the idea
of the helmsman, whom he feels a fondness for, being eaten by
the hungry crew.
Marlow recounts that his greatest concern during this attack
was the worry that he would be killed and miss the opportunity
to meet Kurtz. He has grown fascinated with the man and
wants to know him. This reflection prompts another flash
forward, in which Marlow reflects on what he later learns about
Kurtz and speculates about what factors have shaped Kurtz's
experiences in Africa.
Analysis
That the Company does not provide food to the steamer crew
reinforces the themes of hypocrisy and indifference. It shows
how little regard the Company has for native Africans. Marlow
is amazed that, considering the whites' numbers relative to the
crew, the crew members have not mutinied and killed Marlow
and the pilgrims. What restrains them, he wonders.
Superstition, fear, disgust, honor? He has no answer, but the
Heart of Darkness Study Guide Part Summaries 17

range of choices he considers reflects a change in his thinking
regarding the perceived inhumanity of the Africans. Animals
would kill and eat when hungry; the natives have shown
humanity—which the Company has not demonstrated toward
them.
was a god—is a clear statement of the depravity to which he
had descended. That Kurtz should write such words in a
document meant for a society with the ostensible goal of
suppressing "savage customs" creates a powerful dramatic
irony.

Marlow's language describing the payment and treatment of

the crew reflects the corrupt thinking and behavior of the
imperialists. For example, he describes the salary given the
Part 2 (At the Inner Station)
crew members (three pieces of nine-inch-long [32-
centimeters-long] brass wire per week) as "extravagant" and
says it was "paid with a regularity worthy of a large and
Summary
honorable trading company." His comments rely on verbal irony
The steamer arrives at the Inner Station in disrepair, and
to underscore the imperialistic Company's immorality.
Marlow sees a young man dressed as a harlequin urging them
In his flash forward, Marlow begins to reveal what he later to land. Carrying weapons, the manager and pilgrims go up to
learns about Kurtz. He hints at an evil that has overtaken Kurtz. the station, and the harlequin comes aboard. Marlow is nervous
While the reader has been led to believe to this point that Kurtz about the native people, but the young man says not to worry:
originally sets out with noble purposes, Marlow here describes "They are simple people."
him as depraved. He acknowledges that Kurtz has talents. He
The young man is Russian. Marlow gives him An Inquiry into
calls him "gifted," adding that his greatest gift is "his ability to
Some Points of Seamanship, the book he found at the
talk, his words." Despite these gifts, he has transgressed his
abandoned hut. The young man values the book. As he
original moral boundaries. Marlow says that to understand
explains, the notes are not in code but in Russian.
Kurtz you have to know "how many powers of darkness
claimed him for their own." Kurtz took part in "midnight dances
The Russian also reveals that the earlier attack on the steamer
ending with unspeakable rites," and those rites "were offered
came from these shores. He tells Marlow that he has a hard
up to him." To the native people, Kurtz becomes like a god. He
time keeping the native people from doing more harm to the
had "the power to charm or frighten rudimentary souls into an
steamer because "they don't want [Kurtz] to go," he says.
aggravated witch-dance in his honor." The extremes of his gifts
and his behavior in some ways make him worse than the other
members of the Company. As Marlow puts it, "He was [the Analysis
jungle's] spoiled and pampered favorite."
When the young man encounters Marlow, he talks at
In a key passage, Marlow discusses Kurtz's background. One
breakneck speed as if he has had no one to talk with for a long
parent was English, he says, and one was French, adding, "All
time: "Don't you talk with Mr. Kurtz?" Marlow asks. "You don't
Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz." This statement
talk with that man," the young man answers, "you listen to him."
hammers home the point that Kurtz is not so much an
This exchange reinforces Marlow's impression that Kurtz is
aberration as an inevitable product of the imperialist mentality.
eloquent but that his eloquence suggests a sort of imperial
Marlow also discusses the report that Kurtz wrote for the
arrogance. Kurtz is someone who proclaims, but he does not
Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs. Marlow
listen. It is a mystery to Marlow, moreover, why the native
concludes it was "eloquent" but "too high-strung." The
people—from whom he knows Kurtz has been stealing
document begins with soaring language that reflects the
ivory—do not want him to go.
Company's civilizing mission and the importance of teaching
Africans morality. Marlow also recollects a postscript added The meeting with the Russian also clarifies the mystery of the
later to the document, "in an unsteady hand" (meaning it was book on seamanship that Marlow had recovered from the hut.
written after Kurtz had gone mad), which declares, The book was the Russian's, and he is overjoyed to see it. The
"Exterminate the brutes!" This flat judgment of destruction of annotations are not in code, as Marlow suspected when he
humans—presumably of the natives Kurtz had convinced he found the book. Rather, they are in the Russian alphabet, which

Copyright © 2018 Course Hero, Inc.

Heart of Darkness Study Guide
differs from the Roman alphabet. Still, the detail reinforces in
another way the recurring theme of language and storytelling.
To Marlow, Russian might as well be a code, because he
cannot understand it. Language is elusive; stories cannot be
fully understood by listeners. Communication, like the river
Marlow traveled in the steamer, is fraught with snags and
mishaps.
Part 3 (Harlequin in the Jungle)
Summary
Marlow is puzzled, confused, and disoriented as he looks at the
Russian. The young man's clothes are covered with patches of
bright blue, red, and yellow fabric, garb not typical of the jungle.
Marlow calls the harlequin's "very existence" improbable and
inexplicable.
The Russian tells Marlow how he loves to sit and listen to Kurtz
expound on every imaginable topic. He has also nursed Kurtz
through two illnesses, and he reveals how Kurtz accumulates
large quantities of ivory by raiding the surrounding areas with
the aid of his followers. He is devoted to Kurtz even though the
station agent threatened to shoot him once when the Russian
resisted giving Kurtz a single piece of ivory.
Through the Russian's account, Marlow concludes that Kurtz
has become unhinged: "Evidently," decides Marlow, "the
appetite for more ivory had gotten the better of the ... less
material aspirations." Marlow points his binoculars toward the
station house onshore and notices that the knobs he had seen
on the fence posts from a distance are in fact the black, dried,
heads of decapitated humans. The Russian tells Marlow that
the heads are those of rebels.
Analysis
The Russian's garb is the first indication that something is
strange at the Inner Station. Reality seems to be unraveling,
even though Marlow is a man well grounded in reality. There is
a dreamlike quality to the Inner Station, and Marlow wonders
"why he [the harlequin] did not instantly disappear."
The Russian sheds light on Kurtz's activities. His raids in the
countryside are clearly illegal—he is not trading for ivory but
Copyright © 2018 Course Hero, Inc.
Part Summaries 18
stealing it. Of course, this theft is what the Company is doing
to the region—stealing resources out of greed. While the young
man is devoted to Kurtz, he says that Kurtz can be "terrible," as
the threat to shoot the Russian over one piece of ivory
confirms. But the Russian is so captivated by Kurtz that he
cannot criticize him. "What can you expect," he asks. He came
to the native people "with thunder and lightning. ... They had
never seen anything like it," so they treat him like a god. Yet he
asserts that Kurtz should not be judged like ordinary men.
The other characters' descriptions of Kurtz are painting a
picture of a man whose madness derives from his lust for
power, his exploitation of the natives, and his greed for ivory
coupled with a superior intelligence. Kurtz's fence topped with
the dried heads of native men is a clear representation of his
depravity. Marlow laughs when he learns that these are the
heads of rebels. By this point he understands how language is
manipulated by Company officials, not only Kurtz, to justify
their depravity.
Part 3 (Encountering Kurtz)
Summary
Kurtz arrives on a stretcher. He is ill, but his voice is strong.
Warriors appear from the jungle carrying weapons, and the
Russian says that all Kurtz has to do is give the order and all
the whites will die. The native people love Kurtz and will do
whatever he asks. The pilgrims take Kurtz into a cabin.
The Russian turns to the shore, where he and Marlow see dark
human shapes leaning on spears. Among them are two distinct
bronze figures. One is a woman, dressed beautifully in native
clothes and jewelry. Marlow describes her as "savage and
superb ... ominous and stately."
The manager exits the cabin and declares Kurtz's health to be
poor. The manager adds, insincerely, that they have done all
they can for Kurtz. The manager says Kurtz has done more
harm than good for the Company, showing a "complete want of
judgment." He implies that he wants to get rid of the Russian
too. The young man, sensing the danger he is in, asks Marlow
to protect Kurtz's reputation and then leaves quickly.
Marlow sees a fire that night. He looks into the cabin, but Kurtz
is gone. He sees a trail and realizes that Kurtz, unable to walk,
Heart of Darkness Study Guide
is crawling into the jungle, drawn by the "heavy, mute spell of
the wilderness." Marlow finds him and helps him back to the
station.
Analysis
The theme of hypocrisy is reinforced when the manager
comes out of the cabin and tells Marlow that Kurtz has shown
a want of judgment. The manager's primary concerns are
wealth and exploitation, but he assumes the moral high ground
here in condemning Kurtz's judgment and threatening to report
it to authorities. The manager merely intends to improve his
own lot by discrediting Kurtz.
Kurtz has fallen from the high-minded ideals reflected in the
opening pages of his report and has acted barbarously. Marlow
feels Kurtz is honest about his faults, and, after witnessing the
hypocrisy elsewhere in the Company, Marlow sees the good
and the bad in the other man. At the same time, Marlow is
horrified with himself for taking Kurtz's side: "I felt an
intolerable weight oppressing my breast ... the unseen
presence of victorious corruption." There is a sense that
corruption has beat out something better that lies in Marlow's
own dark soul.
Marlow considers what causes Kurtz to return to the
"forgotten and brutal instincts" of the jungle, and he finally
decides it is the wilderness itself. He says the jungle draws
Kurtz to the primitive roots of humanity: "the gleam of fires, the
throb of drums, the drone of weird incantations." Perhaps,
Marlow suggests, these ancient sounds are elements so much
a part of human nature that one cannot resist them—they
beguile one's soul. Marlow has an epiphany: "Being alone in the
wilderness, [Kurtz's soul] had looked within itself and ... gone
mad." Recognizing that the soul's final journey is to look within
itself and struggle, Marlow realizes that he, too, must look
within and struggle with himself. It is a difficult realization, and
it causes him to break into a sweat.
Part 3 (Return Downriver and
Kurtz's Death)
Copyright © 2018 Course Hero, Inc.
Part Summaries 19
Summary
At noon the next day, Marlow pilots the steamer away from the
station while more than a thousand native people watch the
crew go. Out of the crowd comes the beautiful native woman,
mournfully watching as Kurtz is taken away. The crowd is
hostile and threatening; the pilgrims look ready to shoot at the
Africans. Marlow sounds the whistle on the boat several times.
The crowd, bothered by the sound, the origin of which is
mysterious to them, scatters; the tense situation ends.
When the steamboat breaks down, Kurtz loses confidence that
he will see Europe again, and he entrusts his papers and a
photograph to Marlow to keep them away from the manager. It
appears that Kurtz has been writing for unnamed newspapers
back in Europe and still wishes to publish his ideas to spread
them further. "It's a duty," he says.
One evening Marlow comes in from endlessly repairing the old
steamer and notices a change in Kurtz's features. On his face
is a mixture of pride, power, terror, and despair. He cries out,
"The horror! The horror!" Marlow goes into the mess hall,
where the manager sits with his "peculiar smile" that seals the
"unexpressed depths of his meanness." A moment later the
manager's "boy" comes in and says, "Mistah Kurtz—he dead."
Marlow continues eating, feeling no need to see him again. He
calls Kurtz a "remarkable man who had pronounced a
judgment upon the adventures of his soul on this earth." The
next day the pilgrims bury Kurtz's body.
Analysis
Seriously ill as he is and as depraved as he has become, Kurtz
still entertains his high-minded ideals, yet a part of him
recognizes the depths of depravity to which he has fallen.
Marlow is fascinated by the shifting emotions expressed on
Kurtz's face just before he dies. "It is as though a veil had been
rent," he says. This is a reference to the moment of Jesus's
death in the Gospel of Matthew 27:51, which reads, "And
behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to
the bottom: and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent."
Marlow compares Jesus, killed in a clash of opposing ideas, to
Kurtz, who is overcome by the oppositions in his own nature,
the power of the jungle, and the darkness that dwells within his
soul.
Heart of Darkness Study Guide
Kurtz's final words, "The horror! The horror!" are a cry of
existential despair. With these words he recognizes his own fall
into evil, the barbarity of imperialism, and the depravity of
human nature. This pronouncement seems to be what Marlow
has in mind when he speaks of the "judgment" that Kurtz
delivered "upon the adventures of his soul." That judgment
brings Kurtz back to the last, inevitable darkness: death.
The passage in which Marlow describes Kurtz's expression
before he utters his last words bring in the symbol of ivory.
Marlow refers to Kurtz's "ivory face." Ivory, the product the
Company values, is once again associated with evil and
depravity, with Kurtz's "horror."
Part 3 (Return to Brussels)
Summary
Marlow muses on the meaning of life and how a person might
summarize his life when he is at death's door. He returns to
Brussels and takes with him Kurtz's report, Kurtz's letters, and
the photograph Kurtz asks him to protect. He wryly reflects
that it is his destiny to "show my loyalty to Kurtz" and then
scoffs at the "droll" idea of destiny. Marlow says he has been
near death and calls wrestling with death "the most unexciting
contest you can imagine."
The Central Station manager asks for these papers, but
Marlow refuses to hand them over. Eventually a man from the
Company entreats Marlow to hand over Kurtz's report, and
after some discussion Marlow gives it up. The man sniffs and
hands it back; he has no interest in it as it has nothing to do
with commerce.
Kurtz's cousin finds Marlow and asks questions about Kurtz's
death. He says that Kurtz had been a great musician. The
cousin says that Kurtz had been a universal genius; Marlow
agrees. Ultimately a journalist appears. He apparently worked
with Kurtz at a paper and held him in high regard. He believes
Kurtz should have gone into politics, saying, "He would have
been a splendid leader of an extreme party." Marlow gives the
journalist Kurtz's report for publication. All Marlow has left of
Kurtz now are a few letters and the photograph.
Copyright © 2018 Course Hero, Inc.
Part Summaries 20
Analysis
Marlow returns to the sepulchral city of Brussels, Belgium, and,
like a soldier returning from a war, is unhappy with what he
finds. It all appears so petty: he reflects that the city's people
leading their busy lives "could not possibly know the things I
knew." In his reflections on destiny, Marlow calls life a
"mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile
purpose." He concludes that humans may not reach any
understanding of their own lives until death.
Marlow remains loyal to Kurtz, not because of his pledge to do
so but because Kurtz was honest enough in the end to judge
himself. He expresses his "humiliation" that, when faced with
death, he had nothing to say, no final pronouncement on his life
to give. Kurtz was a "remarkable man" because he did have
"something to say" at the point of death. Kurtz's last words
"had the appalling face of a glimpsed truth."
Despite his awareness of how depraved Kurtz became, Marlow
protects him. The report that he reluctantly hands over to the
Company official has had the postscript saying "Exterminate
the brutes!" torn off. In removing it, Marlow obscures Kurtz's
brutal disregard for human life. Of course, the Company shows
just such disregard, but its members prefer to hide the truth of
their actions behind the cloak of the moralizing mission. Still, it
is this sanitized version of the report that Marlow gives to the
journalist. All that remains is Kurtz's soaring rhetoric about the
ideals of bringing Western civilization to Africans.
Kurtz's cousin and the journalist show an awed respect for the
man. While Marlow shares their view that he had impressive
talents, his respect, unlike theirs, is not based on those abilities
but rather on his belief that Kurtz saw so clearly the meaning
of his life at the end of it. Given readers' positive feelings for
Marlow, his defense of Kurtz might be troublesome. It needs to
be seen in light of Marlow's gloomy view of life as having a
"futile purpose."
The journalist's view that Kurtz would have been a great
success if he had entered politics can be seen as a
condemnation of European politics. That a man who lost his
moral bearings could be successful is frightening. The dark
significance of this judgment is reinforced by the journalist's
comment that Kurtz "could get himself to believe anything."
Heart of Darkness Study Guide
Part 3 (Meeting Kurtz's
Intended)
Summary
In the year following Kurtz's death, Marlow decides to return
his letters and the photograph to Kurtz's "Intended"—his
fiancée. Soon everything Marlow has and knows of Kurtz will
have passed through his hands and be gone: elements of both
his material and spiritual being. Marlow wants to give up his
memories of Kurtz as well.
He visits the Intended and is led into a lofty drawing room,
where she is dressed in black for mourning. She is sweet and
genuine and speaks highly of Kurtz and of the great loss she
and the world now suffer. She asks Marlow to tell her Kurtz's
dying words, and Marlow lies. He tells her that Kurtz's last
words were her name.
Analysis
As Marlow stands on the threshold of the young woman's door,
he imagines the beating of a drum, "like the beating of a
heart—the heart of a conquering darkness." Marlow wants to
give up the memories of Kurtz and his experiences in Africa,
but they are stronger than ever. The jungle triumphs not just
over Kurtz but over Marlow. Indeed, the jungle is Marlow's
antagonist, and there is "a moment of triumph for the
wilderness."
Marlow's conversation with the young woman is packed with
verbal ironies. She does not know how true her words are
when she says, "He died as he lived." The words are true, but
they mean the opposite of what she thinks they mean. Her
beloved lived in depravity toward the end of his life, so he died
as he lived. Marlow's words complete the irony, for he tells her,
"His end was in every way worthy of his life."
Marlow's lie at the end of the story is important because it
reveals how much Marlow has changed. Despite his earlier
proclamation that he hates lies more than anything, when
confronted with Kurtz's fiancée, he understands the value of a
lie for protection of the heart. He cannot repeat Kurtz's self-
judgment and his condemnation of his life and his actions, so
Copyright © 2018 Course Hero, Inc.
Quotes 21
he lies out of kindness. All Kurtz asks for, Marlow muses, is
justice, and now Marlow betrays him by lying. The woman will
not know the lesson of Kurtz's life. But, says Marlow, "I could
not tell her. It would have been too dark."
Part 3 (Completing the Frame)
Summary
In the novella's final movement, the small group of Marlow's
listeners are still waiting on the Thames for the river's current
to change. Marlow sits quietly. The others are silent too. The
river, the original narrator says in closing the novella, "seemed
to lead into the heart of an immense darkness."
Analysis
The brief, final section, merely one paragraph long, concludes
the novella by completing the frame story. The mood is quiet.
The Director of Companies notes that they have "lost the first
of the ebb," the tide that flows away from the shore, the best
time for sailing. The comment indicates how fascinated
Marlow's listeners were with his story—there was no thought of
the friends stopping him during his account and beginning their
cruise. The narrator's closing words once again link the
Thames River and Britain—and thus all of Europe—to the
darkness of barbarity.
g Quotes
"And this also ... has been one of
the dark places of the earth."
— Marlow, Part 1 (Framing the Story)
Marlow refers to the 1st century CE, when Rome conquered
and then ruled Britain, thought at the time to be primitive and
dark. Conrad's point is to link modern Europe—proud of now
being civilized—with its wild, uncivilized past and thereby
connect Europeans to the native Africans they view as
Heart of Darkness Study Guide
barbaric.
"There is a taint of death, a flavor
of mortality in lies."
— Marlow, Part 1 (At the Central Station)
After listening for a while to the brickmaker, Marlow expresses
his hatred of lies, helping establish him as a narrator readers
can trust and also creating a contrast between his honesty and
the hypocrisy of the others who work for the Company.
"We live, as we dream—alone."
— Marlow, Part 1 (At the Central Station)
Marlow reflects on the difficulty of communicating experience.
He wants to explain what happened during his voyage to Africa
and how it affected him, but he finds it impossible. Because his
experience is unique to him and because experiences are
complex and multifaceted, speech cannot adequately convey
it. Each human is, in the end, isolated from all others by the
uniqueness of his or her experiences.
"It was the stillness of an
implacable force brooding over an
inscrutable intention."
— Marlow, Part 2 (Traveling up the River)
Marlow describes the trip up the river to the Inner Station as
similar to traveling back to the earth's earliest beginnings. The
word brooding personifies the jungle, the Europeans'
antagonist, and implacable suggests the utter helplessness of
human beings to resist that force. At the same time,
humans—or at least Europeans—cannot understand that force,
as it has "inscrutable intention," which means that this force is
alive; it has intention, or will, but its desires are unknowable.
Copyright © 2018 Course Hero, Inc.
Quotes 22
"Well ... that was the worst of
it—this suspicion of their not being
inhuman."
— Marlow, Part 2 (Traveling up the River)
Marlow reflects the European view that the uncivilized Africans
are somehow inhuman. Here, the negative construction "not
being inhuman" allows him to distance himself from the
shocking realization that not only might the natives be human
and thus their mistreatment sinful but also that he and other
Europeans have, in their nature, something similar to the
natives.
"Exterminate all the brutes!"
— Kurtz, Part 2 (Attack on the Steamer)
Kurtz adds this at the end of his report on the suppression of
savage customs. The 17-page handwritten opus, full of his
idealistic, moralistic rhetoric, offers suggestions for how the
Company can carry out its civilizing mission in Africa. This
postscript, "evidently scrawled much later, in an unsteady
hand," Marlow notes, reflects Kurtz's descent into mad
depravity. The "brutes" he wants to exterminate are the same
natives he induced to worship him.
"I had expected to see a knob of
wood there, you know. I returned
deliberately to the first I had
seen—and there it was, black,
dried, sunken, with closed
eyelids—a head that seemed to
sleep at the top of that pole, and,
with the shrunken dry lips showing
a narrow white line of the teeth,
was smiling, too, smiling
Heart of Darkness Study Guide Symbols 23

Company agents. Marlow suggests Kurtz's goes deeper and

continuously at some endless and
cannot be understood. Marlow's words also equate Kurtz with
jocose dream of that eternal the darkness, showing how completely it has taken him over.

slumber."
"The horror! The horror!"
— Marlow, Part 3 (Harlequin in the Jungle)

— Kurtz, Part 3 (Return Downriver and Kurtz's Death)

Marlow describes the fence that he sees outside Kurtz's
station and his recognition that the objects on top of each post
are not wooden. After dark hints about Kurtz's actions and These are Kurtz's last words. He has recognized the abject

methods, this is the first direct evidence that something horror of existence—and without a moral compass, that is all

horribly wrong had taken place. While Marlow had seen he can see. The horror he describes might also be rooted in

brutality and an indifferent attitude toward natives' lives at the meaninglessness of existence. In another reading, he has

other stations, there is something grizzly about displaying finally recognized and acknowledged the horror of his own

heads. They are also, with one exception, turned toward the actions.

station, so Kurtz can, presumably, look out a window and see

the faces of his victims every day. The frozen smile adds an
eerie note to the vision but takes on added meaning when
thinking about Marlow as a victim of the darkness; the heads,
then, have the last laugh.
"Droll thing life is—that mysterious
arrangement of merciless logic for
a futile purpose."
"I saw the inconceivable mystery
of a soul that knew no restraint, ... — Marlow, Part 3 (Return to Brussels)

yet struggling blindly with itself."

— Marlow, Part 3 (Encountering Kurtz)
Marlow asserts that Kurtz, alone in the jungle and without
contact with European standards of conduct and thus having
no restraints or boundaries, has gone mad. The struggle is
between the romantic notion that humans are innately good
and the purposefully evil actions of Kurtz.
Near the end of the novella, Marlow expresses a kind of
disdain for destiny. As a human he cannot ascertain the
purpose of life. Nonetheless, his capacity for empathy has
evolved, and he is still able to show compassion toward Kurtz's
Intended.
l Symbols

"His was an impenetrable

Darkness
darkness."

— Marlow, Part 3 (Return Downriver and Kurtz's Death)
Marlow speaks of Kurtz, making the point that the evil within
Kurtz is different from that he has observed in the other
The symbol of darkness opens the novella, when Marlow is on
the yacht on the Thames: "And this also," he says, speaking of
England, "has been one of the dark places on earth." He means
that the land and its peoples were primitive before the Roman
conquest, a parallel to European colonial control of Africa.

Copyright © 2018 Course Hero, Inc.

Heart of Darkness Study Guide
Light and peace is here now, Marlow implies, but "darkness
was here yesterday."
Once Marlow's story is well under way, he says, "We
penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness"
(Part 2, Section 2). There is literal darkness in the jungle and
the waters of the river. But he also says that the suffering of
the indigenous people and the evil in the hearts of the
Company agents is a metaphoric darkness, a darkness of the
unknown, of difference, and of blindness.
The most important metaphoric darkness is that revealed in
Kurtz's heart and symbolized by the decapitated heads of
native men displayed like decorative knobs on his fence posts.
There, they are "black, dried, sunken, with closed eyelids."
These heads and the grisly fence stand as enduring symbols of
Kurtz's depravity. Kurtz, then, symbolizes the darkness of the
colonizers' lost morality, but there is also a sense in which
Kurtz is the victim of the darkness of the jungle. Marlow
comments on "how many powers of darkness claimed him for
their own" in trying to explain his descent into depravity.
Ivory
Ivory symbolizes the greed of the Europeans. It is a consuming
passion for them, the lure that draws them to Africa. It has
become like a religion to them: "The word 'ivory' rang in the air,"
Marlow says when he is at the Outer Station. It "was
whispered, was sighed. You would think they were praying to
it." Ivory, which is white, is the one thing of value that the
Europeans in Heart of Darkness find in dark Africa. But ivory is
also equated with darkness and corruption. Marlow muses that
Kurtz had been captivated by the wilderness, which had "taken
him, loved him, embraced him, consumed his flesh" until he had
lost all his hair, his bald head now looking like an "ivory ball."
When Kurtz is on the verge of dying, just before he says his
last words, Marlow notes his "ivory face." Ivory no longer has
value; it is a thing of evil, which is what Kurtz became.
Dark Wool
Copyright © 2018 Course Hero, Inc.
Symbols 24
The knitting of dark wool by two women at the Company office
in Brussels reinforces the symbol of darkness in the novella.
The women are the knitters of funeral shrouds, used in death,
the ultimate darkness. It is fitting that the work in a city that
always reminds Marlow of a "whited sepulchre," or tomb.
Marlow is disturbed by the women's indifference to him, which
foreshadows the colonizers' indifference to death, both literal
and figurative, throughout the novella. The older woman gives
Marlow an eerie feeling: "She seemed uncanny and fateful," he
says. Marlow says that he often thought of those women
"guarding the door of Darkness, knitting black wool."
Knitting and weaving, viewed as women's work in Conrad's
time, conventionally represent matters of life and death in
literature, and Conrad builds on this tradition. In A Tale of Two
Cities by Charles Dickens (1812–1870), Madame Defarge
secretly uses her knitting to weave into cloth the names of
people to be killed. The convention relates back to Greek
mythology, in which the Fates use thread to measure the
length of a person's life, cutting it when it is time to die.
However, in Greek mythology there are three Fates, who
represent birth, life, and death. In Conrad's scene there are but
two, representing, presumably, life and death, as they work on
cloths for the Company's workers, who are well past birth and
likely to face death.
Harlequin
When Marlow arrives at the Inner Station, he is greeted by a
young Russian man dressed in clothes that are covered with
bright blue, red, and yellow patches. The young man looks as if
he is escaped from a troupe of mimes. Marlow compares him
to a harlequin, something that does not fit in the African jungle.
The harlequin's presence ironizes the tragedy of the situation
and suggests another literary convention: the wise fool,
although the Russian seems more naive than wise.
Drums
As Marlow pilots the steamboat up the river, he hears drums,
which he finds unsettling but intriguing, calling it a sound
Heart of Darkness Study Guide
"weird, appealing, suggestive, wild." He also senses that the
drums have "as profound a meaning as the sound of bells in a
Christian country." The meaning escapes him, though. As the
boat continues upriver and he hears drums again, it is unclear
to all the Europeans whether the drumbeat meant "war, peace,
or prayer." At the Inner Station, when Kurtz wanders ashore
one night as his followers beat the drums, Marlow reflects that
he had been driven "towards the gleam of fires, the throb of
drums." When Marlow stands outside the door of the Intended,
he thinks back to "the beat of the drum, regular and muffled
like the beating of a heart—the heart of a conquering
darkness." The drums, then, are the sound equivalent of the
jungle—an aspect of the environment that is mysterious,
uncivilized, and both attractive and destructive.
m Themes
Racism
Literary critics are divided regarding whether Marlow and the
other white characters in the novella are racist or whether the
central racism of the story comes from Conrad himself.
Whichever is correct, Heart of Darkness echoes the racism of
the time, and racism becomes a primary theme of the novella.
Marlow shows more sympathy for the plight of the native
people than he does for the Company people who pilfer the
land. Nonetheless, he makes racist statements throughout the
text. For example, as he pilots the steamer and hears drums
and cries coming from the banks of the river, he says the boat
is gliding past the noise, generated by Africans hidden in the
jungle, "as sane men would before an enthusiastic outbreak in
a madhouse." He is frightened by what he cannot understand.
He often calls the native people "savages" and describes the
steamer's fireman, who tends the boiler, as "an improved
specimen," casting judgment on the man based on European
ideals. At one point Marlow reveals that he has not previously
thought of the native people as human beings, a revelation
made when he suggests he might have been wrong: "that was
the worse of it," he considers, "this suspicion of their not being
inhuman."
Some critics argue that Conrad was not racist but that,
Copyright © 2018 Course Hero, Inc.
Themes 25
through his racist character, Marlow, he reveals the racist
viewpoints of Company agents and of imperialism more
broadly. Others, including the Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe
(1930–2013), disagree. Achebe argues that, because Conrad
rarely provides native characters with speech or other human
traits, he—the writer—does not view Africans as human. A
major point in support of the position that Conrad was racist is
the fact that the book's central focus is Kurtz and his fate in
Africa. In this view, by focusing on one white man's fall from
grace—indeed, by presenting him as in some sense the victim
of Africa—Conrad overlooks the terrible tragedies colonization
wreaked on millions of African people.
Another important issue is the question of who should speak
for the oppressed. Is Conrad, as a white man, capable of
speaking for the oppressed? Or must one be oppressed to tell
the story of oppression? Readers of Heart of Darkness must
form their own answers to this question and how Conrad's
work reflects on that issue.
Greed and Imperialism
While the stated goal of the Company is to civilize native
people, its true goal is to exploit Africa's resources and convert
them into European profits. While there is talk back in Belgium
of the civilizing mission, and while Kurtz prepares his report for
the Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs, the focus
of the Europeans in Africa is on securing ivory. The Company
Accountant approves of Kurtz because he sends back more
ivory than other agents; he cares neither about Kurtz's
methods nor any civilizing activity he may or may not
undertake. Greed is not just a corporate trait; it is also
personal. The manager of the Central Station worries that
Kurtz's success threatens his own advancement and
opportunity to make money. The manager's uncle leads the
Eldorado Exploring Expedition into the jungle in hopes of
gaining his riches for himself.
Greed is not only for money. Kurtz has an insatiable greed for
power, and, when his followers feed his ego by worshipping
him as they would a god, he becomes corrupt. Marlow
remembers Kurtz speaking of "my Intended, my ivory, my
station, my river" and adds "everything belonged to him." That,
of course, is the essence of the imperialistic attitude: the native
Heart of Darkness Study Guide
peoples of a place have no right to the land where they live or
its resources. Everything belongs to the power that can take it.
Hypocrisy and Indifference
The Company is recalling Kurtz apparently because they find
his methods, though they are never discussed or detailed, to
be excessively brutal. Yet Company officials overlook their own
ruthlessness and brutality in pursuit of ivory. Some in Europe,
like Marlow's aunt, believe that the Company represents
Christian moral values. In joining the Company, Marlow
becomes, in her eyes, "something like an emissary of light,
something like a lower sort of apostle." Even before he goes to
Africa, though, Marlow knows better and tries to correct his
aunt: "I ventured to hint that the Company was run for profit."
All of the Company agents Marlow encounters in Africa
demonstrate that is the overwhelming motivation. They are
indifferent to the suffering they impose on the people around
them.
Civilization versus Barbarism
Believing that they come from a more civilized culture, the
agents of the Company consistently behave in a barbaric
manner. They believe they are more civilized than the Africans
they encounter because they live in cities, travel in steam-
powered trains and ships, wear Western clothes, and have
proper manners. Yet these supposedly civilized Europeans can
easily fall into savagery in uncivilized Africa. Fresleven, the
Danish captain who Marlow is to replace, was "the gentlest,
quietest creature that ever walked on two legs" until he
snapped and repeatedly beat an African village chief because
he felt he had been cheated. Marlow is not surprised: "he had
been a couple of years already" in Africa. The Company doctor
tells Marlow, during his examination of the recently hired
captain, that Europeans who go to Africa experience changes
that "take place inside" the mind. Kurtz, Marlow concludes, was
driven to madness by the darkness and solitude of the place.
While Marlow presents European brutality, he does not show
the supposedly uncivilized Africans as particularly brutal.
Copyright © 2018 Course Hero, Inc.
Modernism 26
Fresleven is killed by the chief's son defending his father,
hardly a horrific act. The steamer's crew, whom Marlow says
are cannibals, want to eat the body of the dead helmsman, but
Marlow doesn't really criticize them for that. He recognizes
that they are starving. While the boat is attacked when it nears
the Inner Station, the reason is simply that Kurtz's followers
don't want him taken away. Though the followers at the station
seem threatening, they don't do anything to harm Marlow or
the other white people on the steamer. Who, then, is civilized,
and who is barbarous?
b Modernism
Conrad is considered one of the innovators of modernism in
fiction. Modernist works demand careful attention by readers,
calling on them to construct meaning from the text rather than
having the author make points more explicitly. Representing a
sharp break from traditional Victorian fiction, these works use
techniques such as stream-of-consciousness narration,
repetition, nonlinear time, and interior monologue. As described
by former Yale professor Pericles Lewis, Heart of Darkness
"does not reveal its meaning in digestible morsels. ... Rather, its
meanings ... are larger than the story itself." Readers first
receive the impressions of an event as related by Marlow, but
"Marlow's arrival at an explanation" comes later, with the result
that the narrated event and the reflection on it are sometimes
not connected. Through this and other modernist techniques,
readers must work to gain meaning from the story.
In this vein Conrad composed Heart of Darkness as an organic
or living text that echoes Marlow's state of mind. The narrative
sequence is not linear but instead moves readers jerkily back
and forth in time, much as the boat has stops and starts in its
journey on the river. The central narrative represents a spiral
downward into darkness. The frame story provides a more
reassuring narrative as Marlow has escaped with his sanity to
tell the tale.
e Suggested Reading
Achebe, Chinua. "Achebe: An Image of Africa: Racism in
Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness.'" Massachusetts Review 18
(1977). Web. 20 Apr. 2016.
Heart of Darkness Study Guide Modernism 27

Conrad, Joseph. Preface. The Nigger of the "Narcissus." By

Joseph Conrad. 1898. The Norton Anthology of English
Literature. 7th ed. Vol. 2C. Ed. M.H. Abrams and Stephen
Greenblatt. New York: Norton, 2000. Print.

Lewis, Pericles. The Cambridge Introduction to Modernism.

Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007. Print.

Lothe, Jakob, Jeremy Hawthorn, and James Phelan, eds.

Joseph Conrad: Voice, Sequence, History, Genre. Columbus:
Ohio State UP, 2008. Print.

Murfin, Ross C., ed. Heart of Darkness. 3rd. ed. Boston:

Bedford/St. Martin's, 2011. Case Studies in Contemporary
Criticism Series. Print.

Said, Edward. "Two Visions of Heart of Darkness." Culture and

Imperialism. New York: Knopf, 1993. 22–31. Print.

Watt, Ian. Conrad in the Nineteenth Century. Berkeley: U of

California P, 1979. Print.

Copyright © 2018 Course Hero, Inc.