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.
Heart of Darkness
Marlow has to wait for ten days in the company's Outer Station, where he sleeps in a hut. At this station, which strikes Marlow as a scene of devastation, he meets the company's impeccably dressed chief accountant who tells him of a Mr. Kurtz, who is in charge of a very important trading-post, and a widely respected, first-class agent, a "'very remarkable person'" who "'Sends in as much ivory as all the others put together'" (Conrad 28). The agent predicts that Kurtz will go very far: "'He will be a somebody in the Administration before long. They, above—the Council in Europe, you know—mean him to be'" (Conrad 29).