narrator whose descriptions of the scene fill the few breaks in Marlow's stories, loll on the

deck waiting for the tides of the Thames River to change. To entertain his compatriots, Marlow

begins to talk about his philosophies on colonization, his personal history, and his voyage up

the Congo River into the heart of Africa. Like many storytellers, Marlow speaks in a stream of

consciousness, skipping forward and backward in time without warning. The reader is left to

infer from symbolism the specifics of Marlow's narrative. Marlow abhors colonization. He

believes that when Europeans colonize other countries to exploit rather than to civilize, white

men commit robbery and murder on "a great scale." His urgent feelings regarding colonization

trigger Marlow to remember his trip into Africa. However, before he begins that specific story

he tells his audience about his fascination with maps and "empty spaces." Since he was a child,

Marlow dreamed of venturing into the dark places on maps. He gets a great chance, he explains,

when his aunt helps him secure a position working for a European-based ivory company as a

im as a god. According to Marlow, Kurtz has been overtaken by the wild darkness. Once a great man, artist, poet, musician, writer, and orator, Kurtz has lost his humanity and now rules with cruelty and hate. Kurtz' insanity is evident in the statement, "Exterminate all the brutes!" he scrawls at the bottom of a report he wrote for the Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs. Kurtz had come to the jungle with the intent to civilize but now he faces his death as an empty, hateful, vengeful man. Chapter Two ends as Marlow and his crew set anchor at Kurtz' station. To greet them, a Russian man runs to the dock and showers Marlow with stories of Kurtz. The animated Russian, who stands in stark contrast to his impenetrable surroundings, explains that he has been wandering the jungle for years, completely unencumbered. He came upon Kurtz and became one of Kurtz' followers when Kurtz "enlarged" his mind.

Marlow: Heart of Darkness is the story of Marlow's journey into the African Congo told by Marlow to his shipmates while they await passage on the Thames River in London. Marlow is the narrator of the story but the first person (the "I") in Darkness is actually an unidentified man listening to Marlow's nearly uninterrupted monologue. Drawn to the sea since he was a boy, Marlow takes a job with a British company which harvests ivory in Africa. However, Marlow's loyalty to the company and their beliefs slowly shifts as he travels to Africa, reaches the first station on the coast, and travels up river to find Mr. Kurtz who has fallen out of favor with company management. Marlow begins to question the ruthlessness and dishonor of his white colleagues and to turn toward the dark unknown of the jungle and its native inhabitants. Marlow begins to identify with Kurtz who Marlow believes understands the jungle, the heart of darkness, better than any other white person so Marlow lon!

t, Kurtz and Marlow are both from the "new gang of virtue." With that insight, Marlow's disgust and uneasiness with his white

3) "I watched the coast. Watching a coast as it slips by the ship is like thinking about an enigma. There it is before you-smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage, and always mute with an air of whispering, 'come finde out.'" Marlow, describing his trip into the Congo, p. 77.

of Savage Customs report then decides to give the rest of the documents to Kurtz' "Intended" (his girlfriend or fiancé). Face to face with Kurtz' Intended, Marlow finds himself lying about the man Kurtz had become. Marlow finishes by telling the woman that Kurtz' last words were her name. Marlow realizes that he lied to save the girl from the darkness that had consumed Kurtz. With that, Marlow ends his story aboard the Nellie. Bobbing about on the Thames, the narrator spies incoming clouds and remarks that even the river upon which they now sit flows "into the heart of immense darkness." Marlow and his fellow journeymen now realize that the heart of darkness lies within men.

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