The reader follows the narrator Marlow's rather terse account of his journey down the Congo into the heart of Africa and the heart of darkness with excitement. For it is also a journey to the darkest places of the human soul. Marlow takes command of the shabby river steamer of a Belgian trading company in the late days of European colonialism. Once in Africa, he hears rumors of a Mr. Kurtz who supposedly lives and rules hundreds of miles upstream. Kurtz is the company's most successful trading ...