Joesph Conrad Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness tells the story of Marlow, a sailor, who describes to his shipmates the unusual experience he had traveling upriver in the Congo and the effect it had upon him. Hired by a Continental trading company as a steamboat captain between the outer stations and the interior, Marlow's primary mission was to visit and, if necessary, retrieve the mysterious Kurtz, an extraordinarily successful agent who had lost contact and reportedly fallen ill. Marlow tells the men that the entire journey was a sort of dream--lacking any real-world logic, deeply affecting, and difficult to describe in its details. The trip took several months, occurring in stages--a trip along the coast, an overland trek to the Central Station, and finally the riverboat journey to Kurtz's outpost.

During the entire expedition Marlow was struck by the mistreatment of natives by the Company and its agents, the preponderance of disease, the intimidating presence of the jungle, and the absurdness of the colonial operation carrying on for a relatively small amount of ivory. He began hearing of Kurtz as soon as he arrived, and everything he heard--of Kurtz's eloquence, of his high moral principles, of his effectiveness, of his influence in the Company--aroused Marlow's interest

The idea of Kurtz began to obsess Marlow. When they arrived at his station, they found he had set himself up as a sort of god to the natives he had once