3.HEART+OF+DARKNESS

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//The Heart of Darkness// is often considered one of the most important works of modern literature. Orson Welles spent years trying to adapt it to screen and Francis Ford Coppola's movie //Apocalypse Now// translates the story as a metaphor for American involvement in Vietnam. In many of his works, Joseph Conrad examined the fragile foundations of civilization. What seems to be refined and secure lies atop a thin floor holding down the wild and untamed nature that lies below. Humans think they have conquered the natural world with their understanding of science and modern inventions, but is ultimately no match for the power of the natural and wild world. Kurtz, the protagonist of Marlow's tale, is presented as the "hero" of European civilization -- a "man's man" in the old parlance -- that seems utterly destroyed by the senseless "horror" of nature's "heart of darkness." There are many interpretations of this relatively short work, but the one that is probably most interesting to us is the "border war" fought between man and nature. As Marlow comes closer to Kurtz, he discovers the terrible basis for the comfortable modern "civilized" life that he enjoys. Similarly, we often do not see the harm we cause on our natural environment. For people living in the cities and suburbs of the United States, the environmental damage associated with extractive industries like oil and coal, the pollution of natural ecosystems, the damage to the global environment including climate change and ozone depletion, are mostly invisible. We do not see ourselves as participants in the damage, much as most Europeans were unaware of the atrocities that were inherent in European Imperialism.

//The Heart of Darkness// is based on the real events occurring in the Belgian Congo Free State in central Africa. Adam Hochschild's //King Leopold's Ghost// details the true history of this period. Belgium's King Leopold acquired the territory as a "Christian" King who would oppose the Muslim slave traders and "civilize" the peoples of Africa. He held it as a private possession and few not involved in his administration were aware of how it was run as a penal colony. Some estimate that between 1890 and 1910 over 10 million Congolese died due to the practices alluded to in //Heart of Darkness//.

One dominant interpretation draws upon Freudian psychology. The journey "up river" is really a psychological journey into oneself. Our narrator, Marlow, represents the Ego. Civilization is the superego of the conscience and the "heart of darkness" is the suppressed id. The "Id" usually understood as our drives and instincts is commonly associated with the animal, i.e., wild, part of our personality. As we mature, we generally suppress it to socialize ourselves to societal norms. Freud suggested in his book //Civilization and its Discontents// that when we suppress this drives and instincts, they explode upon us in violent and unpredictable ways. We need to integrate our "animal" and "social" selves to achieve a sustainable balance. We can perhaps extend this to the balance between human societies and nature.

We are introduced to our narrator, Marlow, while the ship is docked in the English Thames River, just south of London. He is clearly not your typical sailor, he is seated in a "lotus position" silently meditating. The next image that is presented to us is the River Thames as an old and silent witness to the activity that has traveled up and down the river. The river, therefore, becomes a character in the story. The River Thames in England, but also the Congo River into the "heart of darkness." Marlow then turns the tone by making a seeming out of place observation The contrast Conrad makes here should be remembered. At the time of his writing, London was the center of civilization as they knew it but Marlow is hearkening back to the prehistoric Britain when the first Roman legions landed on what they considered, "the end of the earth." It would be like someone on a ship of Manhattan remarking back to the expedition of Henry Hudson as the //Half Moon// sailed up the Hudson. Marlow continues. . . There is a lot packed in there. The first is the reminder that nature once held sway every place we now consider civilized. The other part is the psychological effect it had on those first explorers. For Conrad it is an ambivalent mixture of fascination and disgust. In short, the wilderness brings out the wild, the base instinct of humans. The observation about seamen I think is interesting. They travel far and wide, but it is mostly the repetition of the same background and they go ignorant of the details of the lands they visit. There are two contrasting views of nature here. The first is the attraction of the never changing constancy of nature. This is the attraction for individuals like Thoreau and the sailors. Its constancy is reassurance, and civilization is fraught with constant disorienting change. The other is the novelty. Nature is full of surprises. One can always find something new and that uniqueness makes it interesting. Marlow implies that this is all in the past. Modern efficiency provides the reassurance unavailable to those original conquerors. The source of sanity for colonizers and imperialists is an idol that gives their activities a transcendent value. There is an implicit claim here that our modernity (efficiency) has made us immune to the predations of the "darkness" (nature). I think the purpose of Conrad's tale is to blown open that belief. However, he does also call attention to the importance of an "idea" or "belief" In many ways, this is the same thing that Ishmael is talking about about the Mother Culture whispering into our ear that justifies our actions. Conrad also makes one of the strongest claims and what I think is the central message of this book: Conrad is going to show us the rotten underbelly of civilization and development. One could extend this argument to the conquest of nature (part of conquest of the earth) is equally not a pretty thing. Any glimpse of the Amazon Rain Forest or the violence to the ground of any new housing development gets a sense of this. The exploitation of nature often begins with the exploitation of those humans who live sustainably in it.
 * **pg. 37-8. "Marlow sat cross-legged right aft, leaning against the mizzen-mast. he had sunken cheeks, a yellow complexion, a straight back, an ascetic aspect, and, with his arms dropped, the palms of hands outwards, resembled an idol."**
 * **pg. 39-40. "he was the only man of us who still 'followed the sea.' The worst that could be said of him was that he did not represent his class. He was a seaman, but he was a wanderer, too, while most seamen lead, if one may so express it, a sedentary life . . . but Marlow was not typical (if his propensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to him the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of those misty halos that sometimes are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine."**
 * **pg. 38-9. "Forthwith a change came over the waters, and the serenity became less brilliant but more profound. The old river in its broad reach rested unruffled at the decline of day, after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its banks, spread out in the tranquil dignity of a waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth. We looked at the venerable stream not in the vivid flush of a short day that comes and departs for ever, but in the august light of abiding memories. And indeed nothing is easier for a man who has, as the phrase goes, "followed the sea" with reverence and affection, than to evoke the great spirit of the past upon the lower reaches of the Thames. The tidal current runs to and fro in its unceasing service, crowded with memories of men and ships it had borne to the rest of home or to the battles of the sea . . . Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, they all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire. What greatness had not floated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth! . . . The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empires."**
 * **pg. 39. "'And this also,' said Marlow suddenly, 'has been one of the dark places of the earth.'"**
 * **pg. 40-1. "'I was thinking of very old times, when the Romans first came here, nineteen hundred years ago -- the other day . . . Light came out of this river since -- you say Knights? yes; but it is like a running blaze on a plain, like a flash of lightning in the clouds. We live in the flicker -- may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday. Imagine the feelings of a commander of a fine -- what d'ye call 'em? -- trieme in the Mediterranean, ordered suddenly to the north . . . Imagine him here -- the very end of the world, a sea the colour of lead, a sky the colour of smoke, a kind of ship about as rigid as a concertina -- and going up this river with stores or orders, or what you like. Sand-banks, marshes, forests, savages, -- precious little to eat fit for a civilized man, nothing but Thames water to drink . . . Here and there a military camp lost in a wilderness, like a needle in a bundle of hay -- cold, fog, tempests, disease, exile, and death, -- death skulking in the air, in the water, in the bush. They must have been dying like flies here . . . They were men enough to face the darkness . . .Land in a swamp, march through the woods, and in some inland post feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round him, -- all the mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men. There's no initiation either into such mysteries. He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable. And it has a fascination, too, that goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abomination -- you know, imagine the growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust, the surrender, the hate."**
 * **pg. 39-40. "He was a seaman, but he was a wanderer, too, while most seamen lead, if one may so express it, a sedentary life. Their minds are of the stay-at-home order, and their home is always with them -- the ship; and so is their country -- the sea. One ship is very much like another, and the sea is always the same. In the immutability of their surroundings the foreign shores, the foreign faces, the changing immensity of life, glide past, veiled not by a sense of mystery but by a slightly disdainful ignorance; for there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it be the sea itself, which is the mistress of his existence and as inscrutable as Destiny. For the rest, after his hours of work, a casual stroll or a casual spree on shore suffices to unfold for him the secret of a whole continent, and generally he finds the secret not worth knowing. The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut."**
 * **pg. 41. "'Mind, none of us would feel exactly like this. What saves us is efficiency -- the devotion to efficiency. But these chaps were not much account, really. They were no colonists; their administration was merely a squeeze, and nothing more, I suspect. They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force . . . They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got. It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind -- as is very proper for those who tackle the darkness . . . What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretence but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea -- something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to . . ."**
 * **pg. 41. "The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much."**

The story turns to the main drama arc of Marlow's story about his search for Kurtz and his travels into the "heart of darkness." Marlow first explains the wanderlust and the fascination with "blank spaces" on maps as what drew him to the African tropics. He finagles an appointment to become a steamboat captain on the Congo. The first hint comes when we hear what happened to his predecessor Fresleven: What Conrad is alluding to is that even someone with a gentle nature and constitution could be turned into a violent individual by exposure to the savagery of the "darkness." The ending of this tale is that the village is now deserted, probably because they feared a reprisal from killing a member of the Company. In the Congo Free State, they would often sever hands and feet as punishment for disobedience or not meeting an ivory or rubber quota. Once again, Conrad is making an elliptical reference to what is to come in the story. As Marlow is signed up, the procedures are a little disconcerting. It seems all the officials know his probable fate (death / madness) and a gallows humor surrounds the agency. I think Conrad here is making a point about the disconnect from those that profit from the atrocities in the heart of Europe and those who carry it out. (It's not my fault that the environment was despoiled, I just bought the T-Shirt). Perhaps most disturbing is the doctor who gives Marlow his examination. He measures his "crania" (skull) which was thought at the time to be a key to understanding one's personality and other qualities. The clear implication is that going to the Congo changes individuals (drives them mad) and Marlow must be wondering what he has gotten himself into. The final encounter is with a women who wishes him well on civilizing the heathen natives. Marlow demurs, he is just a steamboat captain.
 * **pg. 42. "'Now when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all the glories of exploration. At that time there were many blank spaces on the earth, and when I saw one that looked particularly inviting on a map (but they all looked that) I would put my finger on it and say, When I grow up I will go there . . .I have been in some of them, and . . . well, we won't talk about that. But there was one yet -- the biggest, the most blank, so to speak -- that I had a hankering after. True, by this time it was not a blank space any more. It had got filled since my boyhood with rivers and lakes and names. It had ceased to be a blank space of delightful mystery -- a white patch for a boy to dream gloriously over. It had become a place of darkness.'"**
 * **pg. 43-44. ". . .one of the captains had been killed in a scuffle with the natives . . . when I made an attempt to recover what was left of his body, that I heard the original quarrel arose from a misunderstanding about some hens . . . Fresleven . . . thought himself wronged somehow in the bargain, so he went ashore and started to hammer the chief o the village with a stick. Oh, it didn't surprise me in the least to hear this, and at the same time to be told that Fresleven was the gentlest, quietest creature that ever walked on two legs. No doubt he was; but he had been a couple of years already out there engaged in the noble cause, you know, and he probably felt the need at last of asserting some self-respect in some way. Therefore he whacked the old n****r mercilessly . . ."**
 * **pg. 45-7. "'I began to feel slightly uneasy. You know I am not sued to such ceremonies, and there was something ominous in the atmosphere. it was just as though I had been let into some conspiracy -- I don't know -- something not quite right; and I was glad to get out . . . She seemed to know all about them and me, too. An eerie feeling came over me. She seemed uncanny and fateful. Often far away there I thought of these two, guarding the door of Darkness, knitting black wool as for a warm pall, one introducing, introducing continuously to the unknown, the other scrutinizing the cheery and foolish faces with unconcerned old eyes. //Ave!// Old knitter of black wool. //Morituri te salutant.*// Not many of those she looked at ever saw her again -- not half, by a long way."**
 * We about to die salute you. This is a play on the cheer by gladiators to the emperor. "Hail Caesar! We who are about to die salute you."
 * **pg. 46-7. " . . . and then with a certain eagerness asked me whether I would let him measure my head. Rather surprised, I said Yes, when he produced a thing like calipers and got the dimensions back and front and every way, taking notes carefully . . . 'I always ask leave, in the interests of science, to measure the crania of those going out there,' he said. 'And when they come back, too?' I asked. 'Oh, I never see them,' he remarked; 'and, moreover, the changes take place inside, you know.' he smiled, as if at some quiet joke. 'So you are going out there. Famous. Interesting, too.' He gave me a searching glance, and made another note. 'Ever any madness in your family?' he asked, in a matter-of-fact tone. I felt very annoyed. 'Is that question in the interests of science, too?' 'It would be,' he said, without taking notice of my irritation, 'interesting for science to watch the mental changes of individuals on the spot, but . . .'**
 * **pg.48. ". . .I was also one of the Workers, with a capital -- you know. Something like an emissary of light, something like a lower sort of apostle. There had been a lot of such rot let loose in print and talk just about that time, and the excellent woman, living right in the rush of all that humbug, got carried off her feet. She talked about 'weaning those ignorant millions from their horrid ways,' till, upon my word, she made me quite uncomfortable. I ventured to hint that the Company was run for profit."**

The Signs that something was not right continue upon his arrival on the African coast. He watches a French warship cannonading the coast at a seeming non-existent target. The European's technological dominance does not seem to be that effective, sort of swatting a fly with a sledgehammer. Clearly, there are many signs telling someone to "get out" or "go away" including the natural signals below the surface of colonizers. Marlow records several other signs. A suicide, dead animals on the road, engineers blasting rock for a railroad even though there is no obstruction. "Criminals" (Prisoners) who are forced to work on a chain gang, etc. Activity without purpose. The official description does not fit the reality. The "criminals" are being mercilessly beaten, doing purposeless work for the aim of beating them. In other words, as bad as this was, there was worse treatment upstream (by Kurtz). Humans were being crush and turned into beasts wantonly. There is also environmental destruction for no seeming purpose. In contrast to this sight, the Company's accountant pops up in clean and orderly clothes impervious to the decay and destruction around him. In fact he complains about these 'distractions' to his ability to keep the books accurately. In part, this is the idol of efficiency that keeps the colonizers sane on the other hand it is a distancing device -- the balance sheet -- that does not record the environmental and human destruction this organizations entails. The accountant will give us our first introduction to Kurtz.
 * **pg. 50. "We called at some more places with farcical names, where the merry dance of death and trade goes on in a still and earthy atmosphere of an overheated catacomb; all along the formless coast bordered by dangerous surf, as if Nature herself had tried to ward off intruders; in and out of rivers, stream of death in life, whose banks were rotting into mud, whose waters, thickened into slime, invaded the contorted mangroves, that seemed to writhe at us in the extremity of an impotent despair. Nowhere did we stop long enough to get a particularized impression, but the general sense of vague and oppressive wonder grew upon me. It was like a weary pilgrimage amongst hints for nightmares."**
 * **pg. 52-3. "'. . . You know that I'm not particularly tender; I've had to strike and to fend off. I've had to resist and to attack sometimes -- that's the only way of resisting -- without counting the exact cost, according to the demands of such sort of life as I had blundered into. I've seen the devil of violence, and the devil of greed, and the devil of hot desire; but, by all the stars! these were strong, lusty, red-eyed devils, that swayed and rove men -- men, I tell you. But as I stood on this hillside, I foresaw that in the blinding sunshine of that land I would become acquainted with a flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly. How insidious he could be, too, I was only to find out several months later and a thousand miles farther. For a moment I stood appalled, as though by a warning . . . They were dying slowly -- it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now, -- nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom.'"**
 * **pg. 52. "'I avoided a vast artificial hole somebody had been digging on the slope, the purpose of which I found it impossible to divine. It wasn't a quarry or sandpit, anyhow. It was just a hole. It might have been connected with the philanthropic desire of giving the criminals something to do. I don't know. Then I nearly fell into a very narrow ravine, almost no more than a scar in the hillside. I discovered that a lot of imported drainage-pipes for the settlement had been tumbled in there. There wasn't one that was not broken. It was a wanton smash-up.'"**

The accountant's description of Kurtz is telling. First, the scene. There is a sick and feverish agent lying on the floor in delirium while the well festooned accountant praises Kurtz basically for being an "earner" and sending the main office the most ivory of any of the agents, all the while the previous scene of the wanton destruction and exploitation lingers outside. To quote one of my favorite lines from another movie: he is just a straight shooter with "upper management" written all over him. Conrad juxtaposes the three contradicting images in one frame. On the road to the Central Station, Marlow makes some off-hand observations about empty villages (where are all the natives, where have they gone?) and natives shot dead lying in the road. The interesting thing about these scenes along the road is that few view it as abnormal.
 * **pg. 55. "'In the interior you will no doubt meet Mr. Kurtz.' On my asking who Mr. Kurtz was, he said he was a first-class agent . . . 'He is a very remarkable person.' Further questions eleicited from his that Mr. Kurtz was a present in charge of a trading post, a very important one, in the true ivory-country, at 'the bottom of there. Sends in as much ivory as all the others put together . . .' . . .'When you see Mr. Kurtz . . . tell him from me that everything here . . . is very satisfactory . . . Oh, he will go far, very far, . . . he will be a somebody in the Administration before long. They, above -- the Council in Europe, you know, mean him to be.'"**
 * **pg. 55. "In the steady buzz of flies the homeward-bound agent was lying flushed and insensible; the other, bent over his books, was making correct entries of perfectly correct transactions and fifty feet below the doorstep I could see the still tree-tops of the grove of death."**

Marlow arrives at the Central Station only to find that his boat has been sunk and he must salvage it. It is implied that the Manager sunk it on purpose due to his rivalry with Kurtz, but that is revealed later. The impression that Marlow gives of the manager of Central Station is that of a dullard, untrustworthy, who holds his position primarily because of his physical constitution and capacity to avoid succumbing to disease. He also mention that he is without check -- no one has the willingness of ability to ensure that he does his job well, and as Marlow relates, a cursory view of the station suggest otherwise. In many ways, the manager is a product of his environment. In many ways, the manager is the anti-Kurtz. He succeeds not because of any outstanding quality, but his ability to be inscrutable and unnoticed. He is happy to keep his station because only here can he enjoy the power and position that he does. In ordinary society, he would be unremarkable. The manager urges him to repair his boat and head upstream to relieve stations under pressure with all due haste. The manager turns to Kurtz, a topic of which Marlow has already heard enough, but his description of Kurtz is much the same as the accountant's version we heard downstream. The atmosphere around the station appears to be in a sleepwalk, consumed with the desire to accumulate ivory, but as Marlow notes, it is surrounded by a wilderness that seems more than the match for the station and its inhabitants. Something is wrong at the station, the ship is sunk, stores burst into flames, they put out fire with hole-filled buckets. It is unkempt and absurd. It is the creeping madness and ennui that seems to have the central station in a thrall. Marlow continues his description. The agents are consumed with an easy fortune, but will spend more time talking about plans and undercutting each other than engage in profitable work. Even the agent who engages Marlow in conversation seems to be using him for information or an angle to improve his situation. Marlow stumbles upon a striking work of art that seems out of place at this station. He learns that it was painted by Kurtz: a beacon of civilization in the jungle. Marlow inquires further about Kurtz. This passage needs a lot of unpacking. The "brickmaker," one of the many "company men" at the station had hoped to get a promotion using the same self-serving and conniving methods. However, Kurtz had come along with these noble ideas and plans and his plans of wealth and promotion were dashed by the "gang of virtue." Essentially, it isn't about virtue, it is about money (ivory) and getting your share of it. At the same time, the brickmaker acknowledges Kurtz's power and doesn't want to offend him because he still wants promotion. If you have to beat, kill, whatever to get your ivory, so be it, is the ethic of the Central Station: the "law of the jungle." This justifies the inhumane treatment of the environment and the natives. Marlow makes an interesting point, while staring into the Jungle, of Kurtz being a "phantom menace" much like Martians that people talk about but no one has seen. He also gives an illustration of how the environment corrupts seemingly virtuous individuals. To get information on Kurtz, he resorts to a lie (about his connections in Europe) to the bricklayer. He notes The next observation by Marlow is a major reason for the psychological interpretations of Conrad's story and why Marlow may be an unreliable narrator. He suggests that this is perhaps not real, perhaps it is just a dream. For the first time since the beginning of the tale, the narration stops and we get the perspective of the listeners to Marlow's story. We are reminded that this is a story and there is an audience. Marlow continues to talk about the absurdity of the Station where there is always what one doesn't need, i.e., calico instead of rivets to fix the launch. All time and energy is spent in unproductive work at the Central Station. Think of someone who will spent hours mastering a video game, but none of doing their homework or earning money. The brickmaker makes one interesting observation about life at the station, foreshadowing Kurtz's fate. Marlow notes how his work repairing the launch is really an opportunity for self-discovery in contrast with the other residents of the central station. Productive work is the defense against the predations of the darkness that has stricken most at the station. His burst of enthusiasm seems to make the darkness beat a retreat (for the moment). Of course, the needed rivets do not come, instead trains of trade goods come in from the coast as everyone is interested in obtaining ivory and does ignores even their mundane needs. Conrad hits another central theme that can be extended to understand human's view of the earth and its resources. It is very much a "eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die" attitude. Get rich by rapacity, steal the earth's treasures without a second thought to consequences. The section closes with another observation about Kurtz: how could a man with moral ideas and convictions survive in this environment.
 * **pg. 58-9. "He was commonplace in complexion, in feature, in manners, and in voice. He was of middle size and of ordinary build . . . even at these times the rest of his person seemed to disclaim his intention . . . there was only an indefinable, faint expression of his lips, something stealthy . . . I remember it, but can't explain. It was unconscious, this smile was, though just after he had said something it got intensified for an instant. It came at the end of speeches like a seal applied on the words to make the meaning of the commonest phrase appear absolutely inscrutable. he was a common trader, from his youth up employed in these parts -- nothing more. He was obeyed, yet he inspired neither love nor fear, nor even respect. He inspired uneasiness. That was it! Uneasiness. Not a definite mistrust -- just uneasiness -- nothing more. You have no idea how effective such a . . .a . . . faculty can be. He had no genius for organizing, for initiative, or for order even. That was evident from the deplorable state of the station. he had no learning, and no intelligence. His position had come to him -- why? Perhaps because he was never ill . . . because triumphant health in the general rout of constitutions is a kind of power in itself . . . But he was great. He was great by this little thing that it was impossible to tell what could control such a man. He never gave that secret away. Perhaps there was nothing within him. Such a suspicion made one pause -- for out there there were no external checks."**
 * **pg. 59. "I interrupted him by saying I had heard of Mr. Kurtz on the coast. 'Ah! So they talk of him down there,' he murmured to himself. Then he began again, assuring me Mr. Kurtz was the best agent he had, an exceptional man, of greatest importance to the Company; therefore I could understand his anxiety. he was, he said, 'very, very uneasy,' . . . 'Ah, Mr Kurtz!' broke the stick of sealing-wax and seemed dumbfounded by the accident."**
 * **pg. 60. ". . . these men strolling aimlessly about in the sunshine the yard. I asked myself sometiems what it all meant. They wandered here and there with their absurd long staves in their hands, like a lot of faithless pilgrims bewitched inside a rotten fence. The word 'ivory' rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed. You would think they were praying to it. A taint of imbecile rapacity blew through it all, like a whiff from some corpse. By Jove! I've never seen anything so unreal in my life. And outside, the silent wilderness surrounding this cleared speck on the earth stuck me as something great and invincible, like evil or truth, waiting patiently for the passing away of this fantastic invasion."**
 * **pg. 61. "However, they were all waiting -- . . . They beguiled the time time by backbiting and intriguing against each other in a foolish kind of way. There was an air of plotting about that station, but nothing came of it, of course. It was as unreal as everything else -- as the philanthropic pretence of the whole concern, as their talk, as their government, as their show of work. The only real feeling was a desire to get appointed to a trading-post where ivory was to be had, so that they could earn percentages. They intrigued and slandered and hated each other only on that account, -- but as to effectually lifting a little finger -- oh, no. By heavens! there is something after all in the world allowing one man to steal a horse while another must not look at a halter. Steal a horse straight out. Very well. He has done it. Perhaps he can ride. But there is a way of looking at a halter that would provoke the most charitable saints into a kick."**
 * **pg. 62. "Tell me, pray,' said I, 'who is this Mr. Kurtz?' 'The chief of the Inner Station,' he answered in a short tone, looking away. 'Much obliged,' I said, laughing. 'And you are the brickmaker of the Central Station. Everyone knows that.' He was silent for a while. 'He is a prodigy,' he said at last. 'He is an emissary of pity, and science, and progress, and devil knows what else. We want,' he began to declaim suddenly, 'for the guidance of the cause intrusted to us by Europe, so to speak, higher intelligence, wide sympathies, a single of purpose.' 'Who say that?' I asked. 'Lots of them,' he replied. 'Some even write that; and so //he// comes here, a special being, as you ought to know.' 'Why ought I to know?' I interrupted, really surprised. He paid no attention. 'Yes. Today he is chief of the best station, next year he will be assistant-manager, two years and . . . but I daresay you know what he will be in two years' time. You are of the new gang -- the gang of virtue. The same people who sent him specially also recommended you. Oh, don't say no. I've my own eyes to trust.' . . . 'My dear sir,' said the fellow, 'I don't want to be misunderstood, and especially by you, who will see Mr. Kurtz long before I can have that pleasure. I wouldn't like him to get a false idea of my disposition . . ."**
 * **pg. 64. "I would not have gone so far as to fight for Kurtz, but I went for him near enough to a lie. You know I hate, detest, and can't bear a lie, not because I am straighter than the rest of us, but simply because it appalls me. There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in lies -- which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world -- what I want to forget. It makes me miserable and sick, like biting something rotten would do. Temperament, I suppose. We, I went near enough to it by letting the young fool there believe anything he liked to imagine as to my influence in Europe. I became in an instant as much of a pretence as the rest of the bewitched pilgrims. This simply because I had a notion it somehow would be of help to that Kurtz whom at the time I did not see -- you understand. He was just a word for me. I did not see the man in the name any more than you do."**
 * **pg. 64-5. "Do you see him? Do you see the story? Do you see anything? It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream -- making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams . . .No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence -- that which makes its truth, its meaning -- its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream -- alone . . .'"**
 * **pg. 66. "'That animal has a charmed life,' he said; 'but you can say this only of brutes in this country. No man -- you apprehend me? -- no man here bears a charmed life.'"**
 * **pg. 66. ". . .but I had expended enough hard work [on the launch] to make me lover her. No influential friend would have served me better. She had given me a chance to come out a bit -- to find out what I could do. No, I don't like work. I had rather laze about and think of all the fine things that can be done. I don't like work -- no man does -- but I like what is in the work, -- the chance to find yourself. Your own reality -- for yourself, not for others -- what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really means."**
 * **pg. 67. "I tried a jig. We capered on the iron deck. A frightful clatter came out of that hulk, and the virgin forest on the other bank of the creek sent it back in a thundering roll upon the sleeping station. It must have made some of the pilgrims sit up in their hovels . . . The great wall of vegetation, an exuberant and entangled mass of trunks, branches, leaves, boughs, festoons, motionless in the moonlight, was liek a rioting invasion of soundless life, a rolling wave of plants, piled up, crested, ready to topple over the creek, to sweep every little man of us out of his existence. And it moved not."**
 * **pg. 68. "Five such installments came, with their absurd air of disorderly flight with the loot of innumerable outfit shops and provision stores, that, one would think, they were lugging, after a raid, into the wilderness for equitable division. It was an inextricable mess of things decent in themselves but that human folly made look like spoils of thieving. This devoted band called itself the Eldorado Exploring Expedition, and I believe they were sworn to secrecy. Their talk, however, was the talk of sordid buccaneers: it was reckless without hardihood, greedy without audacity, and cruel without courage; there was not an atom of foresight or of serious intention in the whole batch of them, and they did not seem aware these things are wanted for the work of the world. To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire, with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe. Who paid the expenses of the noble enterprise I don't know; but the uncle of our manager was leader of that lot."**
 * **pg. 68-9. "I had plenty of time for meditation, and now and then I would give some thought to Kurtz. I wasn't very interested in him. No. Still, I was curious to see whether this man who had come out equipped with moral ideas of some sort, would climb to the top after all and how he would set about his work when there."**

This section begins with Marlow overhearing a conversation between the manager of the Central Station and his Uncle about Kurtz. They clearly resent him. They resent his highfaluting morals and how his success reflects upon them. We learn that Marlow is alone and has sent his (European) assistant downriver (probably the agent we met in the accountant's office on the coast). Kurtz is going it alone, and seemingly, doing well, sending down cargoes of ivory to the station, much to the manager's chagrin. Marlow reflects that he had his first real glimpse of Kurtz. The manager hopes that disease will take down his competitor, Kurtz. The mention another trader who seems to be stealing ivory from the natives who also threatens their interests in the region of the Inner Station (this will prove to be the same person as Kurtz). For him, they have much more direct plans: they intend to hang him knowing the lack of accountability and checks at the Central Station. However, it seems the darkness has plans for these men, literally swallowed by the jungle and the "darkness." Marlow's own description of his journey past the Central Station attests to the primordial and primeval nature and the danger of becoming lost in it as one became more and more disoriented by the surroundings. The space between dream and reality narrows. Marlow notes the psychological aspect of this. One must pay so much attention to the details, that one loses the big picture: the trees, but not the forest. It should be remembered that the river and the jungle are characters in this story. The river is a path on a journey, but a path that is obscured by the wilderness watching from the edges. For Marlow, it is no longer a job, but a quest to find Kurtz. Conrad turns the focus inward, suggesting it is as much psychological as natural. In this description in these pages the narrator goes back and forth describing the natural environment and those inhabitants of that environment. There is more than a little racism here, but what is probably important for our purposes is how these two distinct things are melding into one. The internal mind and external nature have seeped into each other as Marlow progresses up the river.
 * II.**
 * **pg. 72. "They were at loss for an adequate motive. As to me, I seemed to see Kurtz for the first time. It was a distinct glimpse: the dugout, four paddling savages, and the lone white man turning his back suddenly on the headquarters, on relief, on thoughts of home -- perhaps; setting his face towards the depths of the wilderness, towards his empty and desolate station. I did not know his motive. Perhaps he was just simply a fine fellow who stuck to his work for its own sake. His name, you understand, had not been pronounced once. he was 'that man.' The half-caste, who, as far as I could see, had conducted a difficult trip with great prudence and pluck, was invariably alluded to as 'that scoundrel.' The 'scoundrel' had reported that the 'man' had been very ill -- had recovered imperfectly . . ."**
 * **pg. 72. "'We will not be free from unfair competition till one of these fellows is hanged for an example.' he said. 'Certainly,' grunted the other, 'get him hanged! Why ? Anything -- anything can be done in this country. That's what I say; nobody here, you understand, //here//, can endanger your position. And why? You stand the climate -- you outlast them all. The danger is in Europe; but there before I left I took care to -- '"**
 * **pg. 73. "In a few days the Eldorado Expedition went into the patient wilderness, that closed upon it as the sea closes over a diver. Long afterwards the news came that all the donkeys were dead. I know nothing as to the fate of the less valuable animals. They, no doubt, like the rest of us, found what they deserved. I did not inquire."**
 * **pg. 73-4. "Going up river was like travelling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest. The air was warm, thick, heavy, sluggish. There was no joy in the brilliance of sunshine. The long stretches of waterway ran on, deserted, into the gloom of overshadowed distances. On silvery sandbanks hippos and alligators sunned themselves side by side. The broadening waters flowed through a mob of wooded islands; you lost your way on that river as you would in a desert, and butted all day long against shoals, trying to find the channel, till you thought yourself bewitched and cut off for ever from everything you had know once -- somewhere -- far away -- in another existence perhaps. There were moments when one's past came back to one, as it will sometimes when you have not a moment to spare to yourself; but it came in the shape of an unrestful and noisy dream, remembered with wonder amongst the overwhelming realities of this strange world of plants, and water, and silence. And this stillness of life did no tin the least resemble a peace. It was the stillness of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention. It looked at you with a vengeful aspect."**
 * **pg. 74. "When you have to attend to things of that sort, to the mere incidents of the surface, the reality -- the reality, I tell you -- fades. The inner truth is hidden -- luckily, luckily. But I felt it all the same; I felt often its mysterious stillness watching me at my monkey tricks, just as it watches you fellows performing on your respective tight-ropes for-- what is it? half-a-crown a tumble --""**
 * **pg. 75-6. "Where the pilgrims imagined [the river] crawled to I don't know. To some place where they expected to get something, I bet! For me it crawled towards Kurtz -- exclusively; but when the steam-pipes started leaking we crawled very slow. The reaches opened before us and closed behind, as if the forest had stepped leisurely across the water to bar the way for our return. We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness. It was very quiet there. At night sometimes the roll of drums behind the curtain of trees would run up the river and remain sustained faintly, as if hovering in the air high over our heads, till the first break of day. Whether it meant war, peace, or prayer we could not tell . . .We were wanderers on prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet. We could have fancied ourselves the first of men taking possession of an accursed inheritance, to be subdued at the cost of profound anguish and excessive toil . . . The prehistoric man was cursing us, praying to us, welcoming us -- who could tell? We were cut off from the comprehension of our surroundings; we glided past like phantoms, wondering and secretly appalled, as sane men would be before an enthusiastic outbreak in a madhouse. We could not understand because we were too far and could not remember, because we were travelling in the night of first ages, of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sign -- and no memories. The earth seemed unearthly. We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there -- there you could look at a thing monstrous and free. It was unearthly, and the men were -- No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of it -- this suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity -- like yours -- the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar."**
 * **pg. 76. "The mind of a man is capable of anything -- because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valour, rage -- who can tell? -- but truth -- truth stripped of its cloak of time. Let the fool gape and shudder -- the man knows, and can look on without a wink."**

They come across an abandoned hut with a neatly stacked woodpile with instructions scribbled in English. In the hut is a book with marginal notes written in code. The manager believes this to be the home of their unnamed competitor who is stealing ivory from the natives (we will find it is Kurtz and he left the woodpile to encourage the expedition deeper into the heart of darkness toward the Inner Station). This vignette will have more meaning once we meet Kurtz, but should be filed away for the moment. The boat comes up 8 miles short of Kurtz's station and the waylay for the night due to the warnings and the environment. They do not want to approach the station at night. Marlow notes the eerie stillness and silence of his environment as they wait: the calm before the storm. Daybreak is not help because of a dense fog that obscures their vision as much as nighttime. Much of the next few pages is the tension building to the anticipated attack. Marlow considers the "cannibal" natives who are serving on the launch. Marlow concludes with the power of desire (animal instincts) over restraint (civilization)
 * **pg. 83. "Restraint! What possible restraint? Was it superstition, disgust, patience, fear, -- or some kind of primitive honour? No fear can stand up to hunger, no patience can wear it out, disgust simply does not exist where hunger is; and as to superstition, beliefs, and what you may call principles, they are less than chaff in the breeze. Don't you know the devilry of lingering starvation, its exasperating torment, its black thoughts, its sombre and brooding ferocity? Well, I do. It takes man all his inborn strength to fight hunger properly. It's really easier to face bereavement, dishonour, and the perdition of one's soul -- than this kind of prolonged hunger. Sad, but true. And these chaps, too, had no earthly reason for any kind of scruple. Restraint! I would just as soon have expected restraint from a hyena prowling amongst the corpses of a battlefield. But there was the fact face me -- the fact dazzling, to be seen, like the foam on the depths of the sea, like a ripple on an unfathomable enigma, a mystery greater -- when I thought of it -- then the curious, inexplicable note of desperate grief in this savage clamour that had swept by us on the river-bank, behind the blind whiteness of the fog."**