Beginning of Essay
Part I The novel opens at sunset on the deck of a cruising yawl, the Nellie, which at anchor on the Thames. Five men are lying back to rest and mediate, waiting for the tide to turn. One of them, Charles Marlow, thinks aloud about ancient England at the time wh ....

Middle of Essay
.... gunboat firing shells into the dense, black depths of the jungle. Marlow is told that there are enemy natives hidden there, but it is struck by the absurdity of this war with the “darkness” and its invisible forces. Finally, the steamer reaches the mouth of the Congo and Marlow disembarks. Here, he boards another steamer, commanded by a Swede, and starts on his first leg of his journey up the river. The captain tells him of the sad fate of another Swede who had apparently hanged himself. Again and again Marlow is struck by the incongruity of the European presence in Africa. Marlow goes ashore at the Company station, which is surrounded by b ....