7. Hearts Of Darkness (1) Page

Marlow visits the Company’s office in a city resembling Brussels, which he calls a "whited sepulchre"—beautiful on the outside but full of death and hypocrisy. This critiques the "civilizing mission" of European powers as a thin veil for brutal profit extraction.

A massive typhoon destroyed the sets, halting filming for three months. 7. Hearts of Darkness (1)

The original lead (Harvey Keitel) was fired after a week, and his replacement, Martin Sheen, eventually suffered a heart attack on set. Marlow visits the Company’s office in a city

The story begins on the Thames River, where Marlow reminds his listeners that even England was once one of the "dark places of the earth". This establishes the theme that savagery is not a geographic trait but a potential within all human hearts. The original lead (Harvey Keitel) was fired after

In the opening section of Conrad's novella, the protagonist Charles Marlow recounts his journey into the Belgian Congo, setting a tone of moral ambiguity and impending doom.

Marlow is a "frame narrator," meaning we hear his story second-hand, emphasizing that truth is often obscured by personal perspective and the "fascination of the abomination". Heart of Darkness Part 1, Section 1 Summary & Analysis