Conrads Heart of Darkness - Marlow and the Wilderness :: Heart Darkness essays

Marlow and the Wilderness in Heart of Darkness   Marlow has always been confound and curious ab break through the parts of the world that have been relatively unknown by the whitened race. Ever since he was a little kidskin he used to look at many maps and wonder mediocre what laid in the big holes that were unmapped. Eventually one of these holes was fil lead up with the continent of Africa, but he was still fascinated especially by this filled in hole. When he found out that he could possibly get a job with a company that explored the Congo knowledge domain in Africa he sought after it and got it. After all, it was as a steamship victor on the right Congo river. This was a mighty big river...resembling an immense snake uncoiled, with its well in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country, and its seat in the depths of the land (p. 2196). This snake like river was full of mystery to the openhanded Marlow and seemed to call him to it.   The wildne ss that the African wilderness seems to promote is foreshadowed right out-of-door to Marlow before his journey gets going. He finds out that the captain he is alternate was killed over a trading disagreement between him and a chief. It turns out that the caption thought he got a raw deal and accordingly proceeded to hit the chief on the head with a stick, whereupon the chiefs son and so stuck him with a spear and killed him. This promoting of wildness comes out in the fact that this captain was the gentlest, quietest creature ever walked on two legs...but he had been a duo of years already out there (p. 2196-2197).   Marlow then proceeds to head for the Congo, and when he finally reaches the companys lower station he begins to see how the white man has come to try and civilize and control the wildness of Africa and its inhabitants. The nastys were being used as slaves at the station to build railroads. The scene leave Marlow feeling that the blacks were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now,--nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation (p. 2202). Marlow sees how the asserted superiority of the white man has led to the devastation of the black natives in both spirit and body.