1st half of Part I of Heart of Darkness
Questions for Reading
1. What is narrative point-of-view introduced in this first section? How is that different than other stories?
2. What is the difference between Marlow and his companions on the Nellie? How do their names differ? What does this indicate about their roles in the story?
3. How does Marlow get the job with The Company to sail to Africa? What is his purpose on this job?
4. How does Joseph Conrad’s life experience reveal itself in the characters in the narrative so far?
5. What is the Company headquarters like? What does Marlow’s visit there foreshadow?
Notes on Reading:
An unnamed narrator begins the story by describing the scene, in which he is included. This is an atypical way to frame a story; generally the narrator is either a named character in the story or a third-person storyteller who observes all the events and knows little of the inner thoughts of any of them. The first scene is the ship, Nellie, docked on the river Thames in London, England, with five men reminiscing about journeys on the sea. Marlow is accompanied by the Director of Companies (captain of Nellie), the Lawyer, the Accountant, and the Narrator. The narrator tells the story of Marlow telling his story, so it may be a bit confusing at first to understand everyone’s role.
Marlow begins by musing, somewhat darkly, that this spot in England was once quite bloody with death in the Roman age of conquest. The men sit and consider this as Conrad seems to be making a point about how men have been attempting to conquer foreign lands and expand their empires for many, many generations, despite the death and destruction it brings. Marlow then begins his own story of travel explaining that his aunt, who is well-connected, got him the job with The Company to captain a steamship to Africa via the Congo. This company is supposedly prestigious and this is considered a desirable position, but it only opened up due to the death of the last guy in it.
The whited sepulcher, which serves as a symbol in this novella, is introduced in this portion of Part I, as Marlow must travel there before leaving on his trip to Africa. The whited sepulcher is the headquarters of The Company, and it seems to represent darkness, despite its name. Marlow recalls a sense of foreboding when he visited it and you pick up on foreshadowing by Joseph Conrad at what Marlow is to encounter next.
The thirty-day journey up the river and into Africa is detailed by Marlow next. He spends a significant amount of time describing the horrible oppression he witnessed along the way. This is when Marlow realized what it meant for European countries to colonize Africa; as a white European man himself, he had no idea what the conditions were like until he traveled there himself and it had a profoundly dark effect on him. This is when you can begin to see that Marlow is perhaps most like Joseph Conrad himself.
