Heart of Darkness is a tale of the exploration of exotic lands and the colonial world. The discovery of new lands and the claims to such lands was in at its peak at the time of Josef Conrad writing this novella. European powers were acquiring new colonies in the Africa's, by any means possible, thus leading to huge atrocities in human rights being committed . Thus Conrad, in stark contrast to Sir Henry Morton Stanley, seeks to demonstrate the Western Civilisation was not a light of knowledge that enriched "every corner of the globe" , but instead was an imperialist system that's only purpose was "weaning those ignorant millions from their horrid ways." .
Within the world itself, in the late 19th early 20th centuries, there was a slight division on the happenings in Africa. This is evident by the fact that Conrad has two different narrators, who take to binary opposite views, about the western involvement in Africa. The framed narrator, part of Marlow's audience, is clearly in favour of colonialism, and actually did think of it as a superior culture bringing light to the darkness. This can be seen where he says:.
Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, they all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire. .
In this passage the framed narrator depicts the "explorers" as bringers of light to places of darkness. The sacred fire is in reference to the fire, which burns at the heart of the great Western Civilisation, the essence of etiquette, the thing that sets them apart from "the savages". This was an important inclusion for the fact that at that time, there was a great fear among the more "civilised" people that they would regress back into a state of primitiveness. Therefore they thought it was there duty to force change upon the others in an attempt to stop their own regression.