Heart of Darkness

A detailed Summary of Heart of Darkness

Everyone at some time in his or her life has had a dream or desire to have a great adventure. One that would take them through their wildest dreams and to the places they always wanted. Unfortunately sometimes we find that what we thought would be the greatest thing in the world turns out to be our worst nightmare. Joseph Conrad wrote a story called the "Heart of Darkness" which tells of a shipman who discovers this very possibility to be a reality and shares it with some of his acquaintances.

The story is told by Marlow, an experienced ship captain, telling of an experience that he had in is earlier years on the water. He starts his story telling of how when he was younger he had a passion for maps. He said that he would look at them for hours wishing that when he was older he could travel to all the places that were not completely mapped. He had an extreme interest in Africa and all its undiscovered land.

When he gets older he gets the chance to go and work for an ivory company in Africa as a skipper taking shipments of ivory and supplies from station to station. He was very happy to get such a job and looked forward to finally going to the place he had always dreamed of.

Right from the start of his employment he began

Mr. Kurtz was not only sick in the head but he had also become very physically sick. Marlow tried to have him helped, but Kurtz was way to sick. HE died saying, "the horror, the horror" and then he slipped silently away. When Kurtz arrived back in England many journalists wanted Marlow to hand them over the documents that Kurtz had passed along to him Marlow wouldn't allow them to have them because he knew that they did not want to learn from the but that they wanted to gain popularity.

Marlow found Kurtz fiance who had deeply loved Kurtz. When she confronted Marlow about Kurtz's last words Marlow didn't want to allow her pain to increase, so he told her he had said her name.

While traveling on the river Marlow thought of how different things were in this place compared to home. He saw animals that had to be chained and caged back home running around freely on the shore. He noticed the difference in the natives and how they almost seemed wild themselves. " Well, you know, that was the worst of it-this suspicion of their not being human. It would come slowly to one. They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces..." (Pg. 165)

This was not the only thing that seemed quite strange about this place. When he arrived to where his steamboat was, he found that it had sunk in the small harbor and needed to be pulled out and repaired before he could start doing his job.

Marlow finally spoke with Kurtz and discovered that the so-called genius had gone basically insane. Kurtz was carried around on a stretcher and paraded around as if he were a their god. Mr. Kurtz told Marlow that once you had been in this vile area for too long, you started to act just as it did, wild and savage. He ended up staying on the ship and speaking to Marlow. He gave Marlow some pictures of his fiance, and some papers, which he had written. It was a Report which he had called," Suppression of Savage Customs."

The next morning there was a thick fog that covered everything. Marlow started to have t

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1368
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English