Heart of Darkness is about Marlow, an instrospective sailor who wants to be an explorer, and his journey up the Congo River to meet Kurtz, known to be an idealistic man of great abilities. Marlow takes a job as a riverboat captain with a Company, organized to trade in the Congo. As he travels to Africa and then up the Congo, Marlow encounters widespread inefficiency and brutality in the Company’s stations. The native inhabitants of the region have been forced to be the Company’s slaves, and they suffer terribly from too much work and bad treatment at the hands of the Company’s agents. The cruelty and nastiness of imperial enterprise contrasts greatly with the emotionless and majestic jungle that surrounds the white man’s settlements, making them appear to be tiny rocks that are surrounded by a vast darkness.
"For the moment that was the dominant thought. There was a sense of extreme disappointment, as though I had found out I had been striving after something altogether without substance. I couldn't have been more disgusted if I had traveled all this way for the sole purpose of talking with Mr. Kurtz” page 119
“It was very quiet there. At night sometimes the roll of drums behind the curtain of trees would run up the river and remain sustained faintly, as if hovering in the air high over our heads, till the first break of day. Whether it meant war, peace, or prayer we could not tell." Marlow, describing the noises of the jungle on the banks of the river" page 104
"The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much." Marlow, p. 69.
