JOSEPH CONRAD’S HEART OF DARKNESS

Abstract

  
Annotation: Heart of Darkness, a novel by Joseph Conrad, was originally a 
three-part  series  in  Blackwood's  Magazine  in  1899.  It  is  a  story  within  a  story, 
following a character named Charlie Marlow, who recounts his adventure to a group 
of men onboard an anchored ship. The story told is of his early life as a ferry boat 
captain. Although his job was to transport ivory downriver, Charlie develops an interest 
in investing an ivory procurement agent, Kurtz, who is employed by the government. 
Preceded  by  his  reputation  as  a  brilliant  emissary  of  progress,  Kurtz  has  now 
established himself as a god among the natives in “one of the darkest places on earth.” 
Marlow suspects something else of Kurtz: he has gone mad.A reflection on corruptive 
European colonialism and a journey into the nightmare psyche of one of the corrupted, 
Heart of Darkness is considered one of the most influential works ever written.