I came to Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad with trepidation, thinking this would be a hard read. It was difficult and I had to concentrate, but the book is short and I finished it more quickly than I originally expected to.
Heart of Darkness is a story within a story, as the unnamed narrator retells a story that another character, Marlow, told him and others while they were on board a ship on the Thames River waiting for the tide to turn.
Marlow told the story of a time when he was travelling on a river steamer in the depths of Africa, searching for a Belgian company agent named Mr Kurtz. Marlow was intrigued by Kurtz, who was said to be the best procurer of ivory in the whole country.
After arriving in Africa and travelling to his company's station, Marlow spent another ten days waiting for his steamer to be repaired. Marlow was horrified to find the African railroad workers at the station were generally ill, or dying as a result of the work they had been set to do by the Europeans and the lack of the food they had been used to. The conditions of the African people were very to slavery.
When the steamer was ready Marlow started his two-month trip up the river to look for Kurtz, a trip that became more dangerous the further inland he went. There were dangers in the river itself, such as low areas where the steamer could have run aground, overhanging branches and the risk of getting lost. The steamer's crew were under constant threat from attackers on the river bank with one man killed after being hit by an arrow fired from a hidden attacker in the jungle.
Eventually Marlow found Kurtz, only to find he had gone mad and was critically ill.
The biggest theme of the story for me was men's greed, and what they will do to obtain riches. As expected in a story of this time, there is racism, although the Europeans aren't depicted as being morally superior to the African people, probably the opposite. Regardless, the casual and the intended cruelty of the colonisers lurked throughout the background of the whole story.
Heart of Darkness was book eleven of my second Classics Club challenge to read 50 classics before my challenge end date of September 08, 2028.
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