In Heart of Darkness, a novel written by Joseph Conrad, the reader vicariously takes a journey with a man by the name of Marlow and learns the art of survival as he sails up the Congo River on behalf of a Belgian trading company. On this journey, he encounters an ivory trader, a mysterious man named Kurtz, who causes him to focus on what Conrad sees as the corruption of the human heart. However, though appalled by the corruption and despair, Marlow is also fascinated by Kurtz, which sparks the theme of the novel. Conrad takes his views of the heart of human existence and uses it in this journey that expresses the motivations and changes in the two men and gives the reader a vivid image of his views of the world.

Set in the late 1800's, the novel explores the inner beings of Marlow and Kurtz...