Marlow's Journey Toward Madness in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness

Exploration into a new area of the world can be an exciting, informative journey for voyagers with a great sense of wanderlust. Seeing new places and meeting new people can prove to be a spiritually enlightening experience for those who find their daily lives to be mundane and utterly routine. But journeys similar to that of Marlow in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness-interminable miles laboring against the current of the Congo River toward unknown lands surrounded by mystic lands of darkness filled with savage, violent inhabitants-tend to create negative psychological effects on those who undertake them. Marlow's narration in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness works to portray the author's intent to expose the futility of imperialism and the trading companies who further it and uses the theme of darkness to demonstrate the fragile, confused mental state that can overtake a person involved in the business of inhabiting strange lands.

One of Conrad's primary aims in writing his novel is the expose the futility of imperialism (British and otherwise) in the late 19^th - early 20^th Century. The author uses Marlow, the man undertaking the journey up the Congo River, to narrate the novel's story and action. Marlow sits on a boat "with his arms dropped, the palms of hands outwards, [resembling] an idol" as dusk sets, describing the story to the novel's narrator and two others onboard (1). The narrator cuts in occasionally to describe his reaction to Marlow's story or set the scene around the boat but the work undoubtedly belongs to Marlow. As his story progresses, the madness and darkness in his story begin to intensify as well as the darkness and mystery surrounding the boat in the work's present time; the two worlds effectively mirror the theme of the other and add a degree of genius to the overall theme of the work.