Heart Of Darkness
On a boat anchored in the Thames River outside London, a sailor by the name of Marlow observes to several friends that this land was once a place of darkness, an uncivilized wilderness. This reflection leads him to remember an incident in his past, when he commanded a steamboat on the Congo River; his story forms the remainder of the novel.
In his tale Marlow is a young man eager to see the unexplored African jungles. An influential aunt in Brussels secures him an appointment as captain of a Congo steamer. But when he reaches the Company's Outer Station in Africa, he's confronted with a spectacle of black slavery and white greed. In a shady grove he discovers a crew of sickly African ...
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local manager, an unlikable and unfeeling man, who mentions that Mr. Kurtz is rumored to be ill at his station upriver and that it's essential to get to him as soon as possible.
One night as the others are fighting a blaze in one of the sheds, Marlow talks with one of the agents at the station, a brickmaker, who speaks of Kurtz with admiration but also resentment at the talents that make him such a likely candidate for promotion. Kurtz, he says, is one of those men who have come to Africa not merely for gain but with the noble idea of spreading enlightenment across the backward continent.
Dozing one evening on the deck of his steamer, Marlow overhears a conversation between the manager and his uncle, an explorer. It's obvious that the manager despises Kurtz- partly for his high ideals and partly because, like the brickmaker, he resents Kurtz's abilities.
After three months of repairs, Marlow, the manager, and a crew of three or four whites and some 30 Africans begin the ...
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Heart Of Darkness. (2011, March 3). Retrieved March 26, 2025, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Heart-Of-Darkness/95451
"Heart Of Darkness." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 3 Mar. 2011. Web. 26 Mar. 2025. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Heart-Of-Darkness/95451>
"Heart Of Darkness." Essayworld.com. March 3, 2011. Accessed March 26, 2025. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Heart-Of-Darkness/95451.
"Heart Of Darkness." Essayworld.com. March 3, 2011. Accessed March 26, 2025. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Heart-Of-Darkness/95451.
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