Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness – The novella is a frame story where the sailor Charles Marlow recounts his journey up the Congo River to a group of men on a boat on the Thames. Marlow is hired by a Belgian trading company to captain a steamboat in the African interior. During his journey, he witnesses the brutal exploitation and dehumanization of the African natives by the European colonizers. He becomes obsessed with meeting the enigmatic Mr. Kurtz, a highly successful ivory trader who has a near-mythical status and is rumored to have gone mad.