Essay Database

Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness The framing narrative of Heart of Darkness is presented by an unnamed, undefined speaker, who is one of a group of men, former sailors, now professionals, probably middle-aged, on the deck of a yacht at the mouth of the Thames River, London England. The time is probably contemporary with the writing and publication of the novel, so around the turn of the 20th century. One among the group, Charlie Marlow, …

…on the edge of a black and incomprehensible frenzy." As the crisis approaches, the dreamer and his ship moves through a silence that "seemed unnatural, like a state of trance; then enter a deep fog." In the end, there is a symbolic unity between the two men. Marlow and Kurtz are the light and dark selves of a single person. Marlow is what Kurtz might have been, and Kurtz is what Marlow might have become.