How does marlow describe going up the river

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 known once—somewhere—far away—in another existence perhaps. What's cool about this is the way that Marlow compares sailing up that river to going back in time.

Remember that Marlow is telling us this story on a different river, the English Thames. That makes the Thames into a parallel for the Congo. So, if the Thames is like the Congo, then England is like Africa, which means that … white men are like black men, with a key difference: white men used to be like black men.

Want more evidence? At the beginning of the novel, Marlow breaks the silence by saying, "And this also has been one of the dark places of the earth" [1. In other words, England, too, was a place of "primitive darkness" until men from Rome in this scenario, the noble, altruistic "civilized" people invading to do good rode up and conquered it. Consider Marlow's account of what drew him out to Africa.

What is suggested by his likening the Congo River to a "snake" and himself to a foolish, charmed "bird"? What type of experience, what type of journey, do these signs seem to predict? Characterize Marlow's attitude toward women like his aunt Despite his protest that the Company is "run for profit," note that Marlow has been "represented"--like Kurtz before him--as "an exceptional and gifted creature," "Something like an emissary of light" or "lower sort of apostle," and his "excellent" aunt runs on about '''weaning those ignorant millions from their horrid ways.

Europeans in Africa. Describe Marlow's first impressions of the European presence in Africa, captured in his observations regarding the French steamer firing into the coast and regarding the Company's lower station Contrast the Europeans' naming of the Africans as "enemies" to Marlow's view of the Africans. Consider Marlow's description of the "devils" he has seen What are the different types of "devils" he describes?

Why is he so appalled by the "flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly" that he sees in most Europeans in Africa? What does he mean? Europeans in the [Belgian] Congo. Consider the Europeans that Marlow meets at the Company's stations:. How does Marlow assess these men and their motives for coming to and remaining in Africa? Consider how Conrad's representation of the physical nature differs from that of Romanticist writers.

Long before he meets Kurtz, Marlow hears from others that Kurtz is extraordinary, "remarkable. By the end of Part I, Marlow develops a strong curiosity about Kurtz: why?

Marlow sometimes leaps ahead of his story, as when he says that he would not have fought for Kurtz, "but I went for him near enough to lie" Why does Marlow "flashforward" in this way at times in his narrative? What is Marlow's attitude toward lies ? What is the consequence of his allowing the "young fool" to overestimate Marlow's "influence in Europe" ?

Here we are returned to the "narrative present" of the narrative frame: how does the unnamed Nellie narrator feel at this point in Marlow's narrative ? Marlow, Work and Rivets. Analyze Marlow's statements about his "work": why is he so intent upon wanting "rivets" ? Given his surroundings, the example of the other Europeans around him, his admission that he doesn't really like work --why do you think Marlow now turns so avidly to the "battered, twisted, ruined, tin-pot steamboat" ?

Part II Conrad Part II opens with Marlow stranded for some time at the Central Station, waiting for rivets so that he can fix his wrecked steamboat and do the job he was hired to do: make the journey upriver to the Inner Station, fetch the ailing Kurtz, and bring him back.

Marlow's interest in meeting Kurtz grows. Marlow and Kurtz. Marlow, unobserved, overhears a conversation about Kurtz between the manager and his nephew pp. I seemed to see Kurtz for the first time," turning his [Kurtz's] back on headquarters and home, "setting his face towards the depths of the wilderness Marlow wonders at Kurtz's motive in turning back to the Inner Station instead of returning home as he had intended.

A bit later Marlow begins to supply an answer: "Everything belonged to him--but that was a trifle. The thing was to know what he belonged to, how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own" p.

What do you think had called Kurtz back to his Inner Station in the "heart of darkness"? By the time Marlow finally begins his journey upriver, he grows increasingly "excited at the prospect of meeting Kurtz" ; and when he thinks Kurtz might die before Marlow gets to him, Marlow confesses "extreme disappointment": he had looked forward to "a talk with Kurtz" --why?

What do you think is the source of Marlow's fascination with Kurtz? Why does Marlow feel that to miss Kurtz would be to miss "my destiny in life" ? It looked at you with a vengeful aspect" They "crawled toward Kurtz" and "penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness " ; emphasis mine--note this title allusion. What is this "accursed inheritance" that Marlow envisions? Kurtz has travelled up this river before Marlow--what has happened to Kurtz? See also p. Marlow's Attitude toward Africans.

Marlow's attitude toward black Africans is complex, but Chinua Achebe has charged that Heart of Darkness is ultimately racist in a famous essay entitled " An Image of Africa. In particular, consider the attitudes expressed on p. Why does he say that "the worst of it" is suspecting "their not being inhuman"?

Approach cautiously. Inside the hut, Marlow finds a battered old book on seamanship with notes in the margin in what looks like code. The manager concludes that the wood must have been left by the Russian trader , a man about whom Marlow has overheard the manager complaining.

Marlow ponders Kurtz constantly as they crawl along toward him. Marlow wants to press on, but the manager tells him to wait for daylight, as the waters are dangerous here. The night is strangely still and silent, and dawn brings an oppressive fog. The fog lifts suddenly and then falls again just as abruptly. The men on the steamer hear a loud, desolate cry, followed by a clamor of savage voices, and then silence again.

They prepare for an attack. The whites are badly shaken, but the African crewmen respond with quiet alertness. The leader of the cannibals tells Marlow matter-of-factly that his people want to eat the owners of the voices in the fog.

Marlow realizes that the cannibals must be terribly hungry, as they have not been allowed to go ashore to trade for supplies, and their only food, a supply of rotting hippo meat, was long since thrown overboard by the pilgrims.

The manager authorizes Marlow to take every risk in continuing on in the fog, but Marlow refuses to do so, as they will surely ground the steamer if they proceed blindly. Repairing the steamer and then piloting it, he convinces himself, has little to do with the exploitation and horror he sees all around him. Nevertheless, Marlow is continually forced to interpret the surrounding world.

The description of his journey upriver is strange and disturbing. He wonders, for example, how his native fireman the crewman who keeps the boiler going is any different from a poorly educated, ignorant European doing the same job. It was unearthly, and the men were—No, they were not inhuman.

Well, you know, that was the worst of it—the suspicion of their not being inhuman. The manager seems to suggest that his own resistance against the consequences of the tropical climate reflects not just physical constitution but a moral fitness, or the approval of some higher power.