Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness begins on the Thames in London, where an unnamed narrator sits aboard a ship named The Nellie with a group of other men. Among them is Marlow, a seaman with a penchant for telling long and verbose stories. 
 
Marlow begins to recount a story about his journey into Africa. It is thus from Marlow’s perspective that the rest of Heart of Darkness is told – with occasional interjections by the unnamed framed narrator we hear from at the very beginning of the text.

Marlow explains to his listeners that his childhood “passion for maps” and his curiosity about the serpentine river that he saw snaking through the centre of Africa motivated his determination to visit the country. With the help of his enthusiastic Aunt, he obtains a job with a trading Company that will enable him to travel into Africa. Marlow travels across the Channel to a city he ominously refers to as the “sepulchral city” to sign his contract with the Company. Whilst waiting to meet the Company’s Director, he is greeted by two women “furiously knitting” black wool – allusions to the Fates that appear in Greek mythology. He also meets a doctor, who casually but portentously asks Marlow if there is any “madness” in his family. On this note Marlow sets out to Africa.

After travelling around the African coast in a French steamer, Marlow reaches the mouth of the river referenced earlier. A little up the river he finds the Company’s station, where he is astounded at the lack of work the Company seems to be undertaking. Here he also stumbles upon what becomes known as the grove of death’ – a copse in which the African natives, sickened by the work they have been forced to undertake by European colonisers, have crawled into to die. As he is heading back towards the station, an appalled Marlow meets the immaculately dressed but callous Company’s Accountant, whom he respects for his orderliness despite his complete indifference to the suffering of the natives above him. The Accountant introduces us to Mr Kurtz, though at this point little is known about the man.

Ten days later, Marlow sets off on a two-hundred-mile tramp to the Central Station. Here, one of the white pilgrims informs him that his steamer has sunk to the bottom of the river. Marlow also meets the General Manager, a man even colder than the Accountant, but otherwise unremarkable (though he possesses a smile that makes Marlow uneasy). Confused and frustrated, Marlow sets to work repairing his sunken ship, occasionally criticising the other employees of the Company (including a Brick-maker who has made very little bricks), and developing an interest in Mr Kurtz (now revealed to be the chief of the Inner Station where Marlow is headed).

Marlow sets off again up the river. Around eight miles from Kurtz’ station, after navigating through intense fog, he and his crew are attacked by a group of African natives on the shore (Marlow describes being “shot at” by “tiny arrows”). One of these arrows strikes and kills Marlow’s native helmsman. Already disillusioned, Marlow finally reaches the Inner Station, where he encounters an enthusiastic Russian man he likens to a harlequin. Hedonistic and excitable, the Russian hero-worships Mr Kurtz. However, when Marlow does encounter the enigmatic Kurtz, the brilliant man is so emaciated (both physically and psychologically) that he resembles an “ivory ball”. Having surrendered completely to his most avaricious and brutal instincts, Kurtz no longer appears human – though his voice remains eloquent and persuasive. After a strange incident during which Marlow – himself strangely captivated by the “spell of the wilderness”, and struck by a “pure abstract terror” – stops Kurtz from partaking in a midnight ritual involving drums and incantations, the steamboat again leaves the Inner Station, this time with Kurtz (who dies after uttering the final, esoteric phrase “the horror, the horror!”).

Disorientated and disenchanted, Marlow returns once again to the sepulchral city, where he visits Kurtz’s Intended. Still in mourning though over a year has passed since Kurtz’s death, the Intended appears both utterly pure and irrevocably dark – a reflection of the darkness at the very core of the civilising mission upon which Marlow had originally embarked.