He records starvation, exploitation and enslavement as some of the injustices forcefully applied by the Company’s agents. During his passage on several ships, Marlow witnesses gruesome sights of the natives who are ill-treated and exposed to the harshest forms of brutality. Marlow gives details of the events that led to his appointment as a river boat captain working for a Belgian ivory trading company, referred to simply as The Company. Marlow proceeds to recount his exciting tale about his voyage into the depths of Africa to his fellow companions, therefore beginning the novella’s frame narrative style. Set in the second half of the nineteenth century, the story begins with the introduction of protagonist Charles Marlow, who is on board a boat harbored in the River Thames. Conrad cleverly uses foreshadowing as a technique to convey the novella’s themes of hypocritical imperialism, the contradictory views on civilized as opposed to barbaric societies, racism, and the conflict between reality and darkness.
First published in Blackwood’s magazine as a three part serial in 1899 and published in 1902, Heart of Darkness centers on the experiences of protagonist Charles Marlow as he is assigned the duty to transport ivory down the Congo River.
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