The African shores that he observes look anything but welcoming.

The next day he embarks on a one-month journey to the primary Company station. This puzzles Marlow, but he does not think much of it. He tells Marlow that nothing could persuade him to join the Company down in the Congo. The doctor who performs his physical asks if there is a history of insanity in Marlow's family. He feels as if everyone is looking at him pityingly. When Marlow arrives at the company office, the atmosphere is extremely dim and foreboding.

He replaces a captain who was killed in a skirmish with the natives. His aunt has a connection in the Administration Department of a seafaring and exploration company that gathers ivory, and she manages to get Marlow an appointment. Marlow decides he wants nothing more than to be the skipper of a steamship that travels up and down a river in Africa. Marlow has always had a passion for travel and exploration. With the exception of two or three small paragraphs, the perspective shifts to Marlow, who becomes the main narrator for the rest of the novel. He then begins to narrate a personal experience in Africa, which led him to become a freshwater sailor and gave him a terrible glimpse of colonization. He mentions colonization and says that carving the earth into prizes or pieces is not something to examine too closely because it is an atrocity. The others do not understand him because he does not fit into a neat category in the same manner that the others do. Marlow is a stationary man, very unusual for a seaman. The narrator and other guests do not seem to regard him with much respect. While they are loitering about, waiting for the wind to pick up so that they might resume their voyage, Marlow begins to speak about London and Europe as some of the darkest places on earth. The narrator appears to be another unnamed guest on the ship. The group includes a Lawyer, an Accountant, a Company Director/Captain, and a man without a specific profession who is named Marlow. A group of men are aboard an English ship that is sitting on the Thames.

Sparknotes heart of darkness