Heart of Darkness

We live as we dream--alone.... HEART OF DARKNESS is a short novel written by Joseph Conrad, presented as a frame narrative, about Charles Marlow s job as an ivory transporter down the Congo River in Central Africa. This river is described to be ... a mighty big river, that you could see on the map, resembling an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country, and its tail lost in the depths of the land. In the course of his commercial-agent work in Africa, the seaman Marlow becomes obsessed by Mr. Kurtz, an ivory-procurement agent, a man of established notoriety among the natives and the European colonials. The story is a thematic exploration of the savagery-versus-civilization relationship, and of the colonialism and the racism that make imperialism possible.