Joseph Conrad - novel - 1899 - p. 200

Set in the colonial Congo, the semi-autobiographical plot of Heart of Darkness follows the characters up the Congo River: the narrator, Marlow, regales his captive audience with a tale about an ivory trader named Kurtz, a European who has established a station in the Congo with himself as autocrat and idol for the natives. Throughout, Marlow draws parallels between the “savage” behavior of Africans and the ruthless behaviors of and atrocities committed by supposedly “civilized” Europeans.

Heart of Darkness was famously adapted to the screen and a Vietnam War context by Francis Ford Coppola in Apocalypse Now. It has been critiqued by such figures as author Chinua Achebe for its offensively reductive and racist view of Africa and its peoples. Even while the book portrays colonization in a negative light, some argue,  it shores up essentialist and xenophobic notions of Africa as the “dark continent.”

Key elements: Europe, frame narrative