Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness (1899) is a novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad about a narrated voyage up the Congo River into the Congo Free State in the so-called "heart of Africa". Charles Marlow, the narrator, tells his story to friends aboard a boat anchored on the River Thames. This setting provides the frame for Marlow's story of his obsession with the ivory trader Kurtz, which enables Conrad to create a parallel between what Conrad calls "the greatest town on earth", London, and Africa as places of darkness.
Queen of Hearts (Once Upon a Time)
At the Evil Queen's (Lana Parrilla) fortress, Captain Hook/Killian Jones (Colin O'Donoghue) kills a guard in order to reach Belle (Emilie de Ravin), who is imprisoned there. Upon learning that she has no information that can help him kill Rumplestiltskin (Robert Carlyle), he prepares to kill her, but is disarmed of his hook by the Evil Queen/Regina who asks for his help in casting the Dark Curse. He agrees after she explains that the Dark One will be rendered an easily killed mortal man by the curse. His assignment is to travel to Wonderland via Jefferson's hat and kill her mother, Cora (Barbara Hershey), whom Regina previously banished to that land. She enchants his hook so that it can be used to remove Cora's heart, and no more than one heart. He is sent with the corpse of the guard he killed, so that he can bring Cora's body back in accordance with the hat's "one goes in, one comes back" rule.