• It is written in England, 1898–1899; inspired by Conrad’s journey to the Congo in 1890.
• There are two narrators: an anonymous passenger on a pleasure ship, who listens to Marlow’s story.
• The first narrator speaks in the first-person plural, on behalf of four other passengers who listen to Marlow’s tale, and Marlow is a first person narrator.
• Opens on the Thames River outside London, where Marlow is telling the story, events of the story take place in Brussels, at the Company’s offices, and in the Congo, then a Belgian territory.
• The protagonist of this story isCharlie Marlow.
Ambiguity:
• "foggishness" to dramatize Marlow 's perceptions of the horrors he encounters.
• Broke many narrative conventions and brought the English novel
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• In Heart of Darkness, Conrad refers to this committee as the International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs. Leopold II, who was to be sole ruler of this land, never set foot in the Congo Free State. Instead, he formed a company, called simply “the Company” in Heart of Darknes.
Greed of Europeans:
• A prevalent feeling among Europeans of the 1890s was that the African people required introduction to European culture and technology in order to become more evolved.
• The responsibility for that introduction, known as the "white man 's burden," gave rise to a fervor to bring Christianity and commerce to Africa. In return, the Europeans took huge quantities of ivory out of Africa.
• During the 1890s, at the time Heart of Darkness takes place, ivory was in enormous demand in Europe, where it was used to make jewelry, piano keys, and billiard balls, among other items.
• In 1892, Leopold II declared all natural resources in the Congo Free State to be his property. This meant the Belgians could stop dealing with African traders and simply take what they wanted themselves. As a consequence, Belgian traders pushed deeper into Africa in search of new sources of