Heart of Darkness

Aboard the Nellie, a small boat anchored on the Thames, a group of five male passengers gather in a meditative mood. The passengers include the Director of Companies, the Lawyer, the Accountant, Charles Marlow, and the narrator. As the sun sets, they talk. Marlow, the only man among them who still “followed the sea” (77), begins to talk about the darkness of Britain and how strange it must have seemed to the Roman troops who arrived millennia earlier. He ruminates on the dark tendencies of colonial powers before halting and beginning a story, telling how he travelled up the Congo River as the captain of a steamboat.

When Marlow was young, he had a passion for the blank spaces on maps. After returning from years working aboard ships in the Indian Ocean, unable to find new work, he uses his family connections to take charge of a steamboat on the Congo River. An ivory trading company has lost a captain in a dispute with the locals over chickens and needs a replacement. Within 48 hours, Marlow travels across the English Channel to his new employer’s offices. He examines a giant map marked in the colors of the imperial powers; Belgium’s yellow is seemingly small, but he spots the Congo River “dead in the center […] fascinating—deadly—like a snake” (82).

Marlow meets the head of the Company, signs documents, and feels uneasy, as though he has entered a conspiracy. Next, Marlow listens to a man talk about the wonders of the Company and is checked by a doctor. The doctor, a keen phrenologist, asks to measure Marlow’s skull and notes how infrequently the men he examines return from Africa. Lastly, Marlow thanks his aunt. She is under the impression that the Company is working for the good of humanity—rather than profit—and Marlow cannot convince her otherwise. Before he departs, Marlow is struck by “a queer feeling” (84), as though he is about to head to the center of the earth.

Marlow rides a steamer that seems to stop in every port, dropping off soldiers and clerks. From the deck, he watches as a boat “paddled by black fellows” (85) approaches from the shore and is soon scared away. He sees a French ship hammering a coastline with cannon fire. After a month, they reach the mouth of the Congo River. He boards a steamboat, needing to travel upriver to begin his official journey. The boat is captained by a Swede, who upon recognizing Marlow as a fellow seaman, invites Marlow onto the bridge. The Swede tells a story of another man he took upriver who hanged himself for an unknown reason.

Arriving at the Outer Station, which marks the beginning of his mission, Marlow disembarks and discovers that the camp has fallen into disrepair. He hears an explosion and sees a group of black men in chains; a railway is being built. Venturing further into the jungle, Marlow comes across a group of African laborers who are “dying slowly” (89). Walking toward the station, he meets the Company’s accountant, a well-dressed white man who first mentions the name Kurtz. Marlow stays at the Outer Station for ten days, during which time he learns more about Mr. Kurtz, a “remarkable person” (90) and the Company’s best agent who has a station far up the river. Kurtz sends more ivory back to the Outer Station than all the other agents put together. Kurtz, the accountant believes, will undoubtedly go very far in the Company very soon.

The next day, Marlow departs from the Outer Station with a caravan of 60 men, ready to travel 200 miles. The march is long and boring; Marlow does not delve into the details save for a story of the only other white man with him. The man falls sick constantly and must be carried by the locals; this causes many to desert the caravan. After 15 days’ march they arrive at the Central Station. It too is dilapidated. Marlow meets with the General Manager who has accidently sunk the boat Marlow was meant to captain. Rather than turn around, Marlow oversees the repair of his boat. This takes several months. He begins to suspect that his boat may have been purposefully scuttled to prevent him from reaching Kurtz. The General Manager is an underwhelming man but competent; he fills Marlow with a sense of unease. Marlow is informed that the situation upriver is “very grave, very grave” (94); there are rumors that Kurtz is ill and that his station has been jeopardized, but the Manager is effusive in his praise of the Company’s best agent.

In his months at the Central Station, Marlow witnesses a store house burn down, overhears Kurtz’s name being spoken in hushed conversations, and learns how the ivory trading posts are run. Marlow talks to the Station’s brickmaker, who seems keen to extract information from Marlow about the Company, but Marlow has no information. An arresting painting in the man’s quarters catches Marlow’s eye; Kurtz painted it a year earlier. The brickmaker waxes lyrical about Kurtz, referring to him as a prodigy who will soon run the entire Company. Due to the nepotistic nature of Marlow’s appointment, the brickmaker believes that Marlow is a close ally of Kurtz. He tries to befriend Marlow, who uses the relationship to acquire the materials needed to repair his boat. The brickmaker obliges but delivers Marlow a veiled threat. The promised rivets never arrive. Instead, the Eldorado Exploring Expedition arrives and takes over the camp, their mission led by the Station Manager’s uncle. They aim to “tear treasure out of the bowels of the land […] with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe” (103).