Heart Of Darkness Essay, Research Paper

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Heart of Darkness, a novel which explores how man reacts when experiencing a world unlike his own; a world without any rules or regulations; a world that is uncivilized. The story starts out on a sailboat, the Nellie, that is anchored in the Thames River. There, on the ship’s deck sits five men: the owner of the boat, an accountant, a lawyer, the narrator, and, one of the main characters, Charlie Marlow. He starts to tell his shipmates about his only experience with fresh water sailing and the terrors he encountered.

Marlow is an avid sea-goer and he had just returned from his vacation in the Far East. Tired from the long trip, out of money, and through the persuasion of his aunt, he found another job with a company that is involved in the ivory trade. He boarded the French steamer and left Europe headed towards the continent of Africa. From the moment he boarded the ship, his whole adventure took on a dream quality because the calm sea, arid coastline, and his isolation seemed to keep him away for the truth of things. The black men who came out to trade with the ship fascinated Marlow because, to him, they were brief contacts of reality.

Marlow left the ship at the river’s mouth and got on a river boat captained by a Swedish man. They were headed deeper into the area and after a one hundred-mile trip, Marlow landed at the ivory company’s Outer Station. What he saw there shocked him. Valuable machinery, tools, and materials lay there broken and rusted away, as if no one cared whatsoever. He saw people who were sick, hungry, diseased, and the waste of human life appalled him. Marlow hurried up the slope to the company building an met an incredible human creature. This man of high class exhibiting a high-starched collar, huge white cuffs, and elegant clothes was the company’s chief accountant. He had been there three years and his dwelling was just as neat as his appearance, but everything else about the station was chaotic. From this man, Marlow first heard about Kurtz. The accountant describes Kurtz as a first-class agent that is in charge of an important station. Kurtz is one of the best ivory agents and has sent down more ivory than all the others combined.

After ten scorching and disappointing days spent in the Outer Station, Marlow set out with a group of sixty blacks and one white man for the two hundred mile journey to the company’s Central Station. The journey took fifteen days, and Marlow fumbled into the Central Station only to discover that his steam boat was at the bottom of the river. His informant told him everything would be all right, and the manger himself was there waiting to see him now. Although the manager knew they had a difficult trip, he was anything but polite; he didn’t even ask Marlow to sit down. The manager began rambling on about th

e reck and had no idea if Kurtz was alive or not. He said it would take three months to raise and repair the sunken steamer.

Marlow thought the manager is a “chattering idiot” so he turned his back on him and the station. That’s when he noticed a group of roughly twenty white men who carried long staffs and lingered around the station; they were known as the “pilgrims”.

One evening a shed full of inexpensive trade goods caught fire and burned down. Marlow went to look at what the disturbance was and apparently he overheard the manager discussing Kurtz with one of the agents. Later, the brick maker invited Marlow to his room. Marlow was in awe of the elegance of this young man’s quarters, compared to the rest of the station. After a while, Marlow realized the he was just trying to get information out of him about Kurtz’s influential friends back in Belgium. Marlow didn’t disclose anything; he let the agent believe what he wanted.

On his way out the door, Marlow noticed a small sketch in oils on a panel. It was an image of a blindfolded woman carrying a lighted torch. The agent said Kurtz painted that picture at the Central Station over a year ago. The agent snuffed out the candle and they went out outside where the “pilgrims” rambled. Apparently, this agent wanted to be assistant manager of the Central Station; so naturally, he was bitter towards Kurtz. Oddly enough, Marlow realized, the agent had been sent out to make bricks, yet he had been here for over a year but made no bricks. He only did secretarial work for the manager.

Marlow told the agent that he needed rivets to repair the steamer but for weeks he has been without any success. He knew that black carriers came every week bearing supplies from the lower station, but they were always loaded with cheap trade goods and never any rivets. Marlow demanded those rivets but no rivets showed up until many weeks had past. After the agent left, Marlow went aboard the steamer and found another white man, a boiler maker and a workman that the pilgrims despised. Marlow told them the rivets were on their way and they dance victoriously on the steamer’s deck.

Instead of rivets, however, an invasion arrived, a raid by the Eldorado Expedition, whose leader was the manager’s uncle. In over a year, the manager had mad not effort to provide supplies for the Inner Station. Kurtz started down the river many months ago, but after three hundred miles with his shipment of ivory, he decided to turn back, leaving his clerk to complete the delivery. The clerk reported that Kurtz had been very ill and had not fully recovered. Now, it has been nine months since last news about Kurtz.

At last, the rivets had arrived. Marlow repaired the steamboat and set out on an voyage upriver with the manager and four pilgrims onboard. They journey took two months because the steamer seemed to creep along slowly. Fifty miles below Kurtz’ station, they came upon an abandoned hut where a supply of firewood was stacked. Here, Marlow found a book with no cover, but to Marlow, it seemed to be the only real object he had found on the trip.

A mile and a half below the Inner Station, an assault took place when the steamer was bombarded by arrows. The black helmsman was fatally wounded when he was struck by a spear. Terrified, the manager demanded Marlow to turn back, but before he could respond, the Inner Station came in view. A oddly dressed Russian welcomed them. He turned out to be Kurtz’ faithful devotee. He informed Marlow that Kurt was very ill yet still alive. The manager and the pilgrims went up to the house to bring Kurtz to the steamer. After talking to the Russian for a while, he found out that Kurtz had ordered the attack on the steamer. Kurtz had been without trade goods for many months, yet he had collected ivory at gun point until he had a huge supply. Kurtz had became almost a god to these native people. They worshipped him, and he participated in their shocking rituals. The men brought Kurtz down to the steamer and along side the shores, his devoted native followers stood there in disbelief as they took their leader. That night, Kurtz escaped and crept back to his followers to join them in a final savage ceremony. The visit was short lived, though, because Marlow went after and brought him back.

Kurtz trusted Marlow with a packet of important personal papers. A few day later Kurtz met his final demise, and the last words to come out his mouth was, “The horror! The horror!” The pilgrims buried him in a muddy hole the day afterwards.

Later on, Marlow became sick and he was transferred back to Europe. When he got home, three people called him for the papers, but he told them the papers were not important and that he was saving them for Kurtz “intended.” A few days later, Marlow was at the footstep of her door and that’s when he meets her for the first time. She seemed to be in deep anguish over her loss and her words showed that she thought of Kurtz as a man who was honest, faithful, and true. They started talking and eventually she demanded to know what was his last words. Marlow couldn’t do it; he could not tell the truth, so he lied said that the last thing Kurtz said was about her. He didn’t tell her the truth because he knew assuring her that his last words were her name would’ve brought closure and made it easier for her to recover.

The listeners on the deck of the Nellie responded thoughtlessly to Marlow’s story. The novel ends as where it starts, on the calm Thames River where …”the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky — seemed to lead into the heart of immense darkness.”

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