Darkness

Within the first part of Heart of Darkness, we are able to get a clear look into the “darkness” of Africa. Marlow describes men dying amongst the trees, “they were dying slowly…nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation lying confusedly in the greenish gloom” (17). He also alludes to a different kind of darkness—the darkness and accompanying corruption of the white staff—when, soon after arriving, he says “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” (16). Marlow meets the Company’s chief accountant, a “pretending, weak-eyed devil,” who initially appears as a “sort of vision” and “miracle” to Marlow (18). However, Marlow becomes less infatuated with the chief accountant after an exchange the two have about a sick man. Marlow expresses his grave concern that the sick man is dead while the chief accountant, “with great composure,” responds, “No, not yet" and later adds, "When one has to make correct entries one comes to hate those savages—hate them to death” (19).

Toward the end of Part 1, after losing his steam boat, Marlow says, “being hungry…and kept on my feet too, I was getting savage” (23). After spending time in Africa, is Marlow, like the native men and the white staff, doomed to darkness and corruption? If so, what makes this environment so detrimental?