In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the physical journey, as well as the figurative journey, plays a central role in the novella. Marlow, the protagonist, leaves his home in Europe and begins a journey into the center of Africa. He learns of a man named Kurtz, who is the chief of the Inner Station, and travels on his steamer upriver to Kurtz’s trading post. On his journey through the ivory trading stations, Marlow finds himself traveling deeper into the heart of Africa. Marlow’s physical journey into the Congo is a metaphor for the figurative journey of discovering one’s inner darkness to reveal the savagery and corruption within all of mankind when unfettered and empowered. In the commencement of his journey, Marlow comes across countless
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While in Africa, he observes the natives chained together in a line, the Europeans’ maltreatment of the natives, and the inefficiency of the work done by the people in the Company. These senseless acts reveal the horror of the natives being subjected to European supremacy and imperialism. With a lack of efficiency around him, Marlow becomes fixated with work because he wants to see Kurtz, whom he idolizes. After repairing his steamer, he sails up the snakelike river into the “heart of darkness,” emphasizing the novel’s central theme as he progresses on his journey. Along the way, the ship’s crew hears the natives playing drums and sees them dancing rowdily, and Marlow feels an innate instinct to join them and release a darker, primitive side. In addition, Marlow meets many white gentlemen who represent the stereotypical civilized Europeans while traveling down the Congo, but they turn out to be less civilized than the natives due to their lack of restraint when surrounded by an unbounded society. Kurtz is a prime example of this irony; before his conversion he wrote a paper about the superiority of the whites who should “exterminate the brutes,” but then he steps over the threshold into the darkness of savagery and loses all restraint. By the end of his physical journey, Marlow recognizes the inner journey he has taken through watching Kurtz fall as
While in Africa, he observes the natives chained together in a line, the Europeans’ maltreatment of the natives, and the inefficiency of the work done by the people in the Company. These senseless acts reveal the horror of the natives being subjected to European supremacy and imperialism. With a lack of efficiency around him, Marlow becomes fixated with work because he wants to see Kurtz, whom he idolizes. After repairing his steamer, he sails up the snakelike river into the “heart of darkness,” emphasizing the novel’s central theme as he progresses on his journey. Along the way, the ship’s crew hears the natives playing drums and sees them dancing rowdily, and Marlow feels an innate instinct to join them and release a darker, primitive side. In addition, Marlow meets many white gentlemen who represent the stereotypical civilized Europeans while traveling down the Congo, but they turn out to be less civilized than the natives due to their lack of restraint when surrounded by an unbounded society. Kurtz is a prime example of this irony; before his conversion he wrote a paper about the superiority of the whites who should “exterminate the brutes,” but then he steps over the threshold into the darkness of savagery and loses all restraint. By the end of his physical journey, Marlow recognizes the inner journey he has taken through watching Kurtz fall as