The story begins with the NELLIE dropping her anchor in the Thames River as the sun sets. The tides have not set in yet, so on board five men wait and sit meditatively. These five men are the Director of Companies, the accountant, the lawyer, Marlow, and the narrator. After the sky has already turned dark, Marlow notes that the river they are in "has been one of the dark places of the earth". None of the other men are surprised at this comment, nor pay it any attention, as Marlow continues to ramble on about what it would be like if the Roman soldiers of the past saw the darkness of the Thames River they were currently in.
He stops for a moment before beginning a story of his own, one of when he was a fresh-water sailor. He prefaces that the story he is about to share is sorrowful and unclear, yet it has shone a light onto everything he thought he knew before. He begins by explaining that after he had returned to London from a round Asia trip, he was trying to become a captain of a fresh-water trade steamboat that would travel through Africa. He got a position in a Belgian trading company through his aunt's connections and because the previous captain had been killed during an encounter with the natives. He shares that when he visited the company building for his appointment that the process and atmosphere were ominous, as if he was being warned at that moment of the darkness ahead of him.
After visiting a doctor and saying goodbye to his aunt, Marlow leaves in a French steamer and watched as it was responsible for dropping off soldiers and customhouse clerks along the coastline of the Congo River. Marlow describes the journey as one that felt unreal and repetitive, as if he was in a never-ending void only to be broken by the occasional African natives or ships they passed by. He recalls that traveling in such a vague and vast space only fed his curiosity about what was past the coastline and taking place in the settlements.
After thirty days, Marlow reaches the mouth of the river and immediately boards another steamboat led by a Swedish captain. They have a brief conversation about the government officials that live along the coast, and it's clear that the Swedish captain has a certain disdain toward them. After telling Marlow about another Swede that mysteriously hung himself, the captain drops him off at his company station. Marlow makes note of the degrading machinery all around the station as a blast sounds off near a cliff in the distance. Here, he finds out that the company is building a railway.
Suddenly, behind him are six black men walking in a single-file line carrying baskets of dirt on their heads. They are walking toward the blast site and are connected to each other with silver chains and collars. He notes that he could see their ribs and joints clearly through their skin. After seeing them, Marlow continues walking to his left and climbs past a hill. He makes his way into the trees and immediately feels a negative presence. Below him, are a group of natives sitting on the forest floor, dying slowly as they succumb to disease and starvation. He observes that these men were once workers who became unserviceable to the great cause and were therefore left to rot there. He tries to offer a native sitting near him a biscuit but the native simply holds it and stares. Marlow can't stand to look at the sight anymore and quickly leaves for the station.
When Marlow arrives near the buildings, he sees a white man professionally and elegantly dressed. Marlow is so amazed when he sees him that he mistakes him for a hallucination. The man is the company's chief accountant and Marlow harps on about how amazing he was dressed in such a terrible climate. Marlow notes how chaotic it is in the station, with a lot of people moving in and out with goods and work. Marlow was set to stay there for ten days in a small hut, but would sometimes visit the accountant's office to avoid everyone outside. He remarks that the accountant was such a dedicated worker that he found annoyance in the groans of a sick agent's ability to distract him from his writing. However, the accountant would mention Mr. Kurtz, who is described to Marlow as a first-class agent in charge of an important trading post in "the true-ivory country". The accountant stops his work to say that the savages distract him from making correct entries and that he hates them greatly for that. He also tells Marlow to relay to Mr. Kurtz that everything at his station is satisfactory before announcing that Mr. Kurtz will go very far in his line of work.
The next day, Marlow finally leaves the station. On his journey to the Central Station, he accompanies natives who have to carry loads of supplies and befriends another white man who falls weak easily. When asked why he even came to Africa, the man scornfully tells Marlow that it was for money of course. Soon after, the man falls ill and the natives now have to carry him on a hammock. The next morning, Marlow finds the man crashed into a bush and with his nose skinned by the hammock pole. The man tells Marlow to kill someone, but there isn't a native in sight. Marlow then remembers what the doctor near the beginning of the story told him about observing immediate mental changes in individuals and Marlow reflects that he is gaining this habit.
After his fifteenth day of traveling, Marlow finally arrives at the Central Station, only to find that the steamer he was supposed to captain had sunk to the bottom of the river. He finds out that the crew aboard the ship was in a hurry up the river and had the bottom ripped up by rocks. Marlow figures that the crash was too stupid to be an accident, but doesn't press the issue. He then meets with the manager of the station and immediately describes him as being extremely ordinary, yet somewhat mysterious as well. Marlow can't find the right words to describe the manager other than feeling a sense of uneasiness around him. When the manager speaks to Marlow, he is very straightforward and presents to Marlow that there is much to do and that the situation is very grave. He mentions Mr. Kurtz and praises him as well, but also declares that there is a rumor that he's sick, which worries him.
In a hurry to leave, Marlow spouts that it would take months to get his boat back on the river and the manager agrees. Marlow quickly walks out of the manager's hut and thinks of him as talkative and stupid. The next day, Marlow goes to work collecting the broken parts of his steamer when he examines his surroundings. He sees that all of the men around him seem to only wander about and speak of ivory. He's disturbed by this sight and is even more disturbed by the vastness and impenetrability of the forest around them.
Marlow recounts that during his three months of working on the steamboat, a grass shed full of goods had burned down one night. Many people were trying to put out the fire, but Marlow believed there was no use. He sees a native being beaten, presumably, he was being blamed and punished for causing the fire. He also sees the manager and a first-class agent speaking together. The other agents refer to this first-class agent as the "manager's spy upon them", but to Marlow, this is his first time speaking with him. The two of them separate from the group and go to the agent's room. There, Marlow sees that the agent has the privilege to keep a silver-mounted dressing-case and candles in his room, along with native mats, spears, knives, and shields hanging on the walls in cases. They converse, and it is obvious to Marlow that the agent is trying to get him to talk about the Company back in Europe, but Marlow knows nothing, and the agent becomes annoyed.
Afterward, Marlow sees a painting of a blindfolded woman holding a torch in darkness and asks the agent about it. The agent states that Mr. Kurtz painted the image a year ago in the same station while waiting to go to his trading post. Marlow asks the agent to describe Mr. Kurtz and the agent says that the chief of the Inner Station is a prodigy, a man that brings the exact values of the great cause with him to Africa. He describes these values as intelligence, pity, and progress. He ends his rant by saying that he knows that Marlow has deeper intentions with the Company. However, Marlow dismisses him and they leave the hut.
The agent, who previously confessed himself to be a brickmaker, continues rambling on to Marlow about himself. However, Marlow only wishes to have rivets to fix his steamboat. Sensing an opportunity, Marlow convinces the agent to get him some rivets by declaring that it is what Mr. Kurtz wants, implying that he actually does have influence in the company. The agent is clearly confused and distressed by this and quickly leaves, instilling hope in Marlow. Marlow then climbs aboard the steamboat and sees a foreman hanging out near the river, a boiler maker that he has befriended in helping him rebuild the ship. Marlow pats him on the back and exclaims that they will be getting rivets in three weeks, which excites the foreman.
However, the rivets never arrive, and instead, they are visited by white men on donkeys who called themselves the Eldorado Exploring Expedition. Marlow sees them as greedy and cruel, led by the uncle of the manager of the station. Eventually, he gives up on the rivets and instead goes into meditative thinking, mostly about Kurtz.
In the speech that Marlow has about Roman soldiers and darkness, we see his attitude toward the conquering of civilizations. His description of a conqueror is quite negative, as he believes that men who conquered others were merely violent thieves who were lucky enough to strike while the iron was hot. He believes that conquerors didn't meticulously plan out their takeovers, but rather acted out on selfish and destructive desires using nothing but brute force. Marlow considers conquest to be ugly, yet he argues that the idea behind it is more innocent. Coincidentally enough, he makes a point to separate the conquerors of the past and the colonists of his time.
When Marlow describes the incident that got the previous company captain killed, he states that the previous captain, named Fresleven, had become upset over a misunderstanding with some hens and had gone to shore and began beating the chief of the nearby village with a stick. The villagers watched in horror until the chief's son took a spear and stabbed Fresleven to death. The interesting part of this retelling is that Marlow does not judge Fresleven's character for being an aggressor, but rather justifies his actions by claiming that spending so much time dedicated to "the noble cause" had caused him to act this way. He then ends the tale by stating that Fresleven's body had been left there to rot, criticizing the company crew for not having enough respect to retrieve the body of their own captain. The account of Fresleven's death shows the lack of humanity in both the crews who interact violently with the native Africans as well as the European companies who were indifferent to the disturbing passing of a captain and who easily replaced him with another one.
As Marlow details his encounter with the dying natives, he uses a certain diction to convey to his audience that the men who were lying on the forest floor were no longer human to him. He refers to them by certain names such as "one of these creatures", "his brother phantom", and "black shadows of disease and starvation". It's clear that Marlow is not dehumanizing them in a malicious way, but rather is refusing to call them human because he only sees them as husks of what they once were. He recognizes that they have had their humanity stripped from them by the white company men who worked them to exhaustion.
Marlow's observation of the men residing at the Central Station is interesting. First off, he describes them as walking around aimlessly and bitterly, while constantly holding staves. Later on, he refers to them as "pilgrims". The men at the station are pilgrims in the sense that they traveled a great distance to a sacred place, a place that has what they deem so desirable: ivory. Marlow makes a comment that ivory is spoken about so often at the station that the men there must be praying to it. He also notes that the men there wish to be appointed to a station that has ivory, but none of them are willing to do anything to achieve this goal. Most of the men there are only filled with hate at seeing others' successes but are lazy. This reflection serves the purpose to highlight the aggressive greed among the colonists in Africa as well as to further characterize Marlow, to which such terrible greed with no work to show for it is terrible to him.
Throughout his story, Marlow mentions the foreboding and mysterious presence of the jungle around him. Multiple times he has mentioned how the forests surrounding him bring a sense of impending doom, yet they are still grand and great. Marlow fears nature because of his inability to understand it, and yet is able to understand that the efforts of humankind are futile to the force that is nature. This relationship between Marlow and the woodland around him is one of the many things that set the dreadful tone of the book going forward.
One evening, as Marlow is laying on the steamboat trying to sleep, he overhears the manager and his uncle talking about Kurtz. They remark that Kurtz has influence in the administration and that he is alone at his station because he deems the men from the Central Station as inept. They continue talking about how Kurtz sent them ivory but never visited the Central Station himself, and is now alone and rumored to be ill at the Inner Station. The manager then mentions another trader that bothers him, and his uncle suggests that he should be hanged, to set an example. They continue talking and the manager's uncle makes a gesture that startles Marlow, revealing his listening position. The two men stop talking and then walk away from the site.
Soon after, the Eldorado Expedition leaves the station and makes its way into the wilderness. Marlow is excited at the idea of meeting Kurtz, and after two months, he finally arrives at the bank below the Inner Station. He gives a brief summary of his journey to the bank, hinting that he pondered what his relationship with the trees around him and the natives on the shore meant to him. When Marlow and his passengers, consisting of "pilgrims", the manager, and hired cannibals, arrive at the bank, they find a sign outside a deserted hut warning them of dangers up the river. Marlow concludes that the hut was previously inhabited by a white man, and he then finds an old book about seamanship containing diagrams of ships. He keeps the book and continues on course, while the manager makes a note that whoever had lived inside that hut was invading their territory and will not go unpunished.
They continue riding down the river and make a stop when the sun sets. The next morning the crew is awoken to a foggy river by extremely loud shrieking from the natives on the nearby shore of the river. The pilgrims are shocked and terrified of whether or not the natives will attack them. One of the cannibals approaches Marlow, and Marlow stops to think about how hungry the cannibals onboard must be since their food was thrown out by the pilgrims and they are paid in a currency they can't use on the river. Marlow respects the cannibals for showing restraint in not eating the white crew, since they easily outmatch them, and decides that the pilgrims look considerably unwholesome compared to them.
The manager states that he is worried about Mr. Kurtz's safety, but Marlow knows this is just to keep appearances. For now, both he and the manager understand that they are stuck until the fog clears. The manager asks Marlow if he thinks the natives will attack, and Marlow answers no. He says that the natives would also get lost in the fog if they tried to move and that their loud cries sounded more sorrowful than hostile.
Two hours after the fog lifts, the steamboat continues its course. However, soon after, the boat is attacked by natives in the brush of the river bank. As they are shooting arrows at the boat, Marlow notices that the ship is caught in a snag. Suddenly, the pilgrims fire back with their Winchester guns, and now Marlow can't see anything past the smoke. He goes back into the pilot house and steers the steamboat into the deep part of the bank. Meanwhile, the helmsman, a black man who Marlow describes as mad and foolish, is struck by a spear and falls to the ground in a pool of blood near Marlow's feet. Marlow stares at him before looking back at the wheel and blowing the steam whistle, which causes the flood of arrows and cries to cease.
Afterward, a pilgrim in pink pajamas enters the pilot house and he, along with Marlow, stares at the bleeding helmsman until he dies. Marlow describes the final look on the helmsman's face as inexplicably somber and touching, but quickly moves on to replace his socks and shoes, which got soiled by the blood. He then makes a comment that Mr. Kurtz has to be dead by the time they reach him. He finds himself disappointed by this idea since he believes that his efforts to reach Mr. Kurtz, his one goal at the end of it all, were in vain.
Marlow stops the story to reveal that he did get to meet Mr. Kurtz and notes that he was incredibly bald and withered by the jungle around him. Mr. Kurtz speaks as if everything belonged to him, but Marlow wonders what dark forces Mr. Kurtz himself belonged to. He then notes that Mr. Kurtz must have had a difficult time living in solitude and alludes to the fact that his "nerves went wrong", most likely due to this confinement. Marlow mentions a paper that was assigned to Mr. Kurtz by the International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs and that Mr. Kurtz wrote a very eloquent piece of writing. At the time, Marlow thought his experience of reading the paper was magical but reflects on how sinister it truly was. Nevertheless, the paper was entrusted to him by Mr. Kurtz, who asked Marlow to never let him be forgotten.
Marlow then continues where he left off to remark that he and the helmsman had a deeper connection than he entailed to the audience and that he was sincerely traumatized by his death. Moreover, he reveals that he dumped the helmsman's body overboard and continued sailing. As Marlow listens to the disheartened attitude of the crew giving up on Kurtz, the pilgrim with pink pajamas dances at the thought that the crew probably slaughtered the natives in the bush when firing at them. However, Marlow concludes that the crew fired way above the bush and that the steamboat whistle is what drove off the natives.
Suddenly, Marlow spots a clearing by the riverside and an outline of a building. He takes the ship toward it and lands there, finding another white man beckoning to them. Marlow compares the man's attire to that of a harlequin and describes the man's nature as bouncing back and forth between somber and joyful. After the manager and the pilgrims hop off the steamboat to visit a house on a nearby hill, the man comes onboard the ship with Marlow. Marlow is displeased with the natives in the nearby bush, but the man dismisses his concerns by stating "they are simple people". Marlow asks if the man speaks with Mr. Kurtz, but the man says he merely listens. The man then tells Marlow that he went to sea on a Russian ship and then left to work on some English ships. It's revealed that this Russian was actually a lone traveler and the inhabitant of the hut found with the sea book outside of it. Marlow returns the book to him and he tells Marlow that Mr. Kurtz has enlarged his mind.
When the manager of the Central Station and the leader of the Eldorado Exploring Expedition are speaking together at night, the leader claims that it would be reasonable to hang a trader that bothers the manager. He argues that no one is there to challenge the manager's authority, and thus, killing this trader would further send a message to the other men there that the manager is not someone to oppose. This conversation ties back to a main theme present in the novella: inhumanity. Although the book paints scenes of cruel behavior toward the African natives, it also demonstrates how the white men in settlements and Company stations could be despicable to one another. Without the criticism and laws of European society present, it drives the colonists in Africa to act on their frustrations and desires without consequence. Superiors, such as the manager, could be as inhumane as they wished with no one to stop them, enabling a toxic environment for even the white men they considered to be their equals.
When Marlow is making his way to the river bank below the Inner Station, he examines his surroundings and discovers his attitude in the mystery of both the trees and natives around him. He compares the Earth that he is familiar with to a "shackled form of a conquered monster", and that the forests that surround him now present themself as free. This is probably a reason why Marlow is so uncomfortable with the jungle's presence because he is not used to seeing nature in its untouched might. Also, he makes a point to say that the natives around him were strange because they were so different from him, however, a slow realization was coming to him that these natives were not as inhuman as they were made out to be. Marlow finds that as much as he doesn't understand the natives and their customs, he still felt connected to them somehow as if it was the natural human connection that all people have with one another.
When Marlow stops the story to reminisce about what Mr. Kurtz is like, he mentions an essay that Kurtz wrote, one that fascinated him at the time but becomes more ominous when Marlow reflects on what he read. The essay holds Kurtz's true feelings of white supremacy, saying that white men are saviors of the natives and are like gods among them. When in reality, we understand that the natives only fear and distrust the white men for invading their land and enslaving them. It was this underlying attitude that was a driving force in the justification of European imperialism, that white Europeans were doing the savages of the lands they conquered a favor by making use of them and teaching them proper civilized manners. Kurtz is meant to represent this belief while also being held in high regard by many other white men in the book, including Marlow.
As he sits face to face with the Russian, Marlow determines the man's character as having a useless existence. He determines that the only thing saving this sailor from desolation is his youth and his need to keep hopping from place to place. The Russian continues to speak of Kurtz, and Marlow notices that never before has his surroundings looked so hopeless. The sailor mentions that Kurtz leaves the Inner Station to visit nearby villages in search of ivory and that he has gotten many of the natives to listen to him. He then explains that Kurtz one time even threatened to shoot and kill him over a box of ivory he had stashed. However, the sailor doesn't judge Kurtz like a normal man and desperately wants to leave the country with him. Kurtz would agree to leave with the sailor, but falls out on his promise numerous times to go back to hunting for ivory. Marlow claims that Kurtz must be mad, but the Russian defends Kurtz and states otherwise.
Marlow looks around the scenery with his binoculars and notices something disturbing. He sees that there are heads of black men on stakes around the station, with most of them facing the house on the hill. Marlow is immediately disturbed by what he sees and the Russian reveals that the heads were once rebels, but are now "symbols" used by Mr. Kurtz to convey a message to other natives. Marlow is displeased as the sailor tries to justify Kurtz's actions, saying that his life of solitude has driven him to these measures and that he is very ill.
Suddenly, the group of pilgrims appears around the house carrying Kurtz on a stretcher. Before they make it very far though, a large group of natives cries out and confronts them. Marlow is upset that their lives are in the hands of Kurtz, who he first has a negative impression of. Kurtz rises out of the stretcher to reveal his frail and sickly body and shouts a few words at the natives, which causes them to leave. He is then carried to another cabin in the station, and Marlow sees that there are plenty of torn envelopes and papers on the bed. He also notes that Kurtz does not present himself as in pain, but rather looks calm and steady.
Kurtz then looks at Marlow and speaks to him for the very first time. Marlow is astonished that he finally gets to hear his voice after all this anticipation. He finds Kurtz's voice remarkably strong for someone who appears so weak. Marlow then steps outside the cabin and joins the Russian in staring at the shore. A native woman appears covered in jewelry and ornaments, and Marlow states that she contains the very soul and passion of the wilderness around her. She makes her way toward the men, throws her arms up in the air, and then makes her way back into the bush of the forest. The Russian says that if she were to try to board the steamboat, he would have shot her.
It is then that Marlow hears Kurtz yelling at the manager from inside the cabin, accusing him of interfering with his plans. The manager leaves the cabin and tells Marlow that Mr. Kurtz has harmed the Company with his unsound methods of retrieving ivory, causing the district to close and the trade to suffer. Marlow states that he thinks Mr. Kurtz "is a remarkable man", and the manager sees whose side Marlow is now on.
The Russian then approaches Marlow and tells him that he has secrets that might ruin Mr. Kurtz's reputation. Marlow tells him to reveal them since Mr. Kurtz is sort of a friend to him now. The Russian suspects that the white men that accompanied Marlow dislike him, and Marlow comments that the manager wants him hanged. This scares the Russian, who says that it is about time for him to leave Mr. Kurtz. Then, the Russian exposes the truth behind the attack on the steamboat earlier, saying that it was Mr. Kurtz who organized it. He states that Mr. Kurtz didn't want the crew on the boat to take him away so he intended to scare them off and have them assume he was dead. The Russian then urges Marlow not to tell anyone this secret so Kurtz's reputation is safe, and Marlow promises he won't. The Russian then walks toward a canoe and says a final goodbye to Marlow.
That night, Marlow is awoken by loud yells and drums. He walks over to Kurtz's hut but finds only a company agent sleeping outside of it. He doesn't wake the agent up because he had sworn to not betray Mr. Kurtz and instead finds and follows a trail along the bank of the river. Marlow finds Kurtz and confronts him, but Kurtz tells him to go away and hide. Marlow tells Kurtz that he will get lost and then threatens to physically harm him. Kurtz mourns his immense plans as they were now ruined by the arrival of the steamboat and the Company crew. However, Marlow tells him that he still has success in Europe and as he carries him back to camp, observes that Kurtz is a broken man who struggles with himself.
The next day, the steamboat leaves with Kurtz on it. While it moves, a crowd of natives flock to the shore and shout out at Kurtz. The woman that Marlow saw before runs to the shore and shouts at Kurtz as well, to which he smiles at her. Marlow then blows the steam whistle when he sees the pilgrims getting their rifles out to shoot at the natives. One of the pilgrims tells Marlow not to scare them away, but Marlow continues blowing the whistle until only the woman is left on shore. The pilgrims shoot out until there is nothing but a cloud of smoke.
As the boat makes its way downstream, Marlow notices that the manager and pilgrims are no longer in his favor and that he is cast aside with Kurtz, who is slowly dying. One morning, Kurtz hands Marlow a box of papers and a photograph to keep safely away from the manager. Later on, Kurtz tells Marlow he is dying, but Marlow dismisses him and leaves the ship cabin after hearing his final words. Marlow goes to eat dinner in the messroom when it is announced that Mr. Kurtz is dead. The pilgrims run to see his corpse, but Marlow remains at the table and continues eating. The next day the pilgrims bury the body.
Marlow reflects on Kurtz's death and decides that he shall remain loyal to him even after he has passed, simply because he had something to say up until his last breath. He recalls Kurtz's final words, "The horror!", believing it to be a final retort to the darkness around him.
Marlow makes his way back to Brussels, Belgium, and observes its bustling streets filled with people who do not truly know what life is. He takes offense at the fact that the common people of this city have not seen what he has and that they are "unenlightened". He confesses that he still has the papers given to him by Kurtz and that the Company had sent a man with spectacles to retrieve these papers from him. Marlow only gave him the report on the "Suppression of Savage Customs", to which he grabbed it and left unsatisfied. Later, a man claiming to be Kurtz's cousin visits Marlow to ask about his last moments, as well as another man who is a journalist. The journalist tells Marlow that Kurtz was an extremist, and Marlow agrees before giving him one of Kurtz's reports. Neither the journalist nor the cousin could explain what profession Kurtz partook.
Finally, Marlow is left with the portrait of the woman that Kurtz had, which he figures is his lover. He decides to visit her and sees that she is still mourning Kurtz's death a year after he has passed. They sit together and discuss Kurtz, with Marlow regarding him as remarkable and as his friend. The woman is clearly distressed and asks Marlow what Kurtz's last words were. He lies and tells her that it was her name, figuring that it would be too dark to tell her the truth.
The novel ends with Marlow ceasing his story and the boat the five men are on making its way toward a dark sky.
As the Russian describes what Mr. Kurtz has been doing at the Inner Station, he reveals to Marlow a set of behaviors that have led him to believe that Kurtz has gone mad. However, when examining closely, it is clear that the behaviors are similar to that of an addict. Mr. Kurtz is obsessed with finding ivory and is not afraid to abandon any morality to obtain it, as shown when he threatens to shoot the Russian just for a case of it. He goes for months on end in grand hunts for ivory and is never satisfied. By now, we along with Marlow have figured out that Mr. Kurtz has detrimental flaws. His insatiable greed is his biggest flaw and it lets him become consumed by the forests around him, by a figurative darkness.
The death of Mr. Kurtz is interesting as well. The way he dies, surrounded by both metaphorical and literal darkness of the boat cabin is tragic. He falls victim to the disease that has killed so many other white men there and his final words are, "The horror! The horror!" What these words mean is up to different interpretations, however, what it most likely means is that as Mr. Kurtz dies, he becomes aware of the darkness that has followed him and is now engulfing him whole. The realization of nothing but total darkness around him frightens him so much that all he can do is cry out, "The horror! The horror!"
Finally, when Marlow arrives back in Belgium, we see that his character has grown quite a bit from the beginning of his tale. Now he sees the people around him as meaninglessly busy and unimportant. He considers the city of Brussels to be futile after having stayed in the foreboding jungle of the Congo for months. He considers his experience on the Congo River so life-changing that no one singular person in Brussels could even begin to feel what he's felt. By the end, we see a taste of hypocrisy in Marlow, as he lies to Kurtz's lover about his final words. Near the beginning of the novel, Marlow stated that the one thing he couldn't stand was a liar, but then ends his story by being one.