Heart Of Darkness Essay, Research Paper

Everyone at some time in his or her life has had a dream or desire to have a great adventure. One that would take them through their wildest dreams and to the places they always wanted. Unfortunately sometimes we find that what we thought would be the greatest thing in the world turns out to be our worst nightmare. Joseph Conrad wrote a story called the Heart of Darkness which tells of a shipman who discovers this very possibility to be a reality and shares it with some of his acquaintances.

The story is told by Marlow, an experienced ship captain, telling of an experience that he had in is earlier years on the water. He starts his story telling of how when he was younger he had a passion for maps. He said that he would look at them for hours wishing that when he was older he could travel to all the places that were not completely mapped. He had an extreme interest in Africa and all its undiscovered land.

When he gets older he gets the chance to go and work for an ivory company in Africa as a skipper taking shipments of ivory and supplies from station to station. He was very happy to get such a job and looked forward to finally going to the place he had always dreamed of.

Right from the start of his employment he began to notice something very strange about the people that ran this company. Not a conspiracy within their legal matters but something about the way the people acted. Each seemed to be thoroughly interested in something other than the importance of getting fresh supplies to one of their stations that had not been visited for some time and the place where they believed that all of the ivory was. They claimed that the man who was stationed there was most likely all right because very intelligent, to the point of being a genius, and could take care of himself.

This was not the only thing that seemed quite strange about this place. When he arrived to where his steamboat was, he found that it had sunk in the small harbor and needed to be pulled out and repaired before he could start doing his job.

So far he was discovering that his journey that he thought would be the trip of his greatest dreams was turning out to be a disaster. He was not about to give up though and so he set to work on getting his ship fixed. It took him about two months to finish all the necessary repairs on the boat.

While working with the men and the manager of the station Marlow felt a presence of some strange emotion from all of them. Finally he discovered that the weird feeling he felt coming from the people at this station was pure uneasiness. He was obeyed, yet he inspired neither love nor fear, nor even respect. He inspired uneasiness. That was it! Uneasiness. Not a definite mistrust just uneasiness—nothing more. (Pg. 152)

Eventually Marlow stated his journey up the river towards the station that held the man named Kurtz, who was supposedly a genius. Carefully Marlow directed his boat up the river so that it would bottom out and sink for the second time. He watched for dead wood that might break is stern and was always keeping his attention on the river.

While traveling on the river Marlow thought of how different things were in this place compared to home. He saw animals that had to be chained and caged back home running around freely on the shore. He noticed the difference in the natives and how they almost seemed wild themselves. Well, you know, that was the worst of it this suspicion of their not being human. It would come slowly to one. They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces (Pg. 165)

On the evening of the second day on the boat, Marlow figured that they were about eight miles from the Inner station. He wanted to complete the rest of the distance but was told that it was safer to stop for the night, for they could not see at night.

The next morning there was a thick fog that covered everything. Marlow started to have the men pull the anchor up when there was a loud shrieking around them. Then it became quite and a blanket of arrows swept over the deck. A thick stick flew my Marlow and struck one of the natives in the chest. Marlow stayed focused on steering the ship as the man fell to the ground. Marlow felt his feet get warm and sticky then realized that the native had rolled over and his blood was pouring all over his feet.

Marlow now felt that he wanted to speak to Kurtz. While he did not know this man he wanted to speak to him, he knew that he would learn something of importance when he finally met this man.

Marlow continued his way into the inner station. When he arrived at the inner station, he found that the people were eager to see them, Except for the natives, but he also found that they were greedy and wanted the ivory for themselves. Marlow spoke with one of the men, and all the man could talk about was how Kurtz was this and Kurtz was that.

Marlow finally spoke with Kurtz and discovered that the so-called genius had gone basically insane. Kurtz was carried around on a stretcher and paraded around as if he were a their god. Mr. Kurtz told Marlow that once you had been in this vile area for too long, you started to act just as it did, wild and savage. He ended up staying on the ship and speaking to Marlow. He gave Marlow some pictures of his fianc , and some papers, which he had written. It was a Report which he had called, Suppression of Savage Customs.

Mr. Kurtz was not only sick in the head but he had also become very physically sick. Marlow tried to have him helped, but Kurtz was way to sick. HE died saying, the horror, the horror and then he slipped silently away. When Kurtz arrived back in England many journalists wanted Marlow to hand them over the documents that Kurtz had passed along to him Marlow wouldn t allow them to have them because he knew that they did not want to learn from the but that they wanted to gain popularity.

Marlow found Kurtz fianc who had deeply loved Kurtz. When she confronted Marlow about Kurtz s last words Marlow didn t want to allow her pain to increase, so he told her he had said her name.

When looking through this story you start to see a trend of good feelings turning to bad feelings. Marlow always dreamt of Africa being a place of wonderful adventure, but instead he found that he hated the place once he had been there. And this also, said Marlow suddenly, has been one of the darkest places on the earth. (Pg. 136) Marlow thought that when he met Kurtz that he would meet an intelligent man, not someone who was driven to a savage way of living. He also believed that he would find satisfaction in receiving and delivering the ivory, but finds that the whole ivory business is full of people full of greed and self gratification and he did not want to become like them.

We as people must learn to take a step back and look at the big picture instead of focusing in on one area, because when we don t pause to look at the big picture, all we see is a small section that gives us only a small portion of the outcome. If we plan our dreams with Christ at the head, we will not be disappointed with the outcome, for he is the master planer.