![]() Once he boards the steamboat, the story takes place almost entirely on or beside the Congo. When he gets the job he crosses the Channel to sign the papers, and soon arrives at the Company who runs an oversea empire. ![]() He begins his narrative by describing his childhood fascination with the “immense snake” of the Congo River and his attempts to get a job as a skipper of a river steamboat. The inner frame, the story told by an exemplary seaman named Marlow, is prefaced by his reflections on ancient Roman use of the Thames River and his reminder that he had once turned fresh-water sailor, just after having sailed the Indian, Pacific, and China seas. The outer frame of the story begins and ends on a seafaring boat in an ocean port. Although the images of darkness and light get the most scholarly and critical attention in Joseph Conrad’s highly symbolic novel Heart of Darkness, the abundant references to very different bodies of water strike me as equally intriguing and worthy of examination. ![]()
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