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The freedom is there throughout the novel to stay and discover or live in ignorance, which is in contrast to Achebes Things Fall Apart where the reader is not given the freedom to choose, only to accept how it is, whether they ethically agree or not, thus showing the arrogance of Achebe.
Conrad's text is a disturbing tale; he uses fact-based drama to backup his intentions to bring colonialism to light and support the foreign lands. His only way of getting his message across to the misguided invaders was to write this tale of truths. He knew the strength of the society from which he came, so fact based text would be his strongest ally. Marlow is Conrad's tool with which he conveys the sheer brutality of colonisation to the western society that was so obviously in need of educating. .
Marlow's journey of self-discovery begins in London on the "Nellie, a cruising yawl" surrounded by "gloom"; this is the opening scene that begins Marlow's journey into the darkness. I feel that Conrad is using the gloom to stress his point, that the blame of evil lies with his own society. He further makes his point by only using names for Marlow, Kurtz and his predecessor Fresleven; every other character is recognised by his trade e.g. the brickmaker and the accountant etc. This enhances the fact that the people that were terrorising the way of the African people did not deserve to be blessed with a name, as many committed the act, too many to name individually, so colonisers should be blamed as a whole and they can be seen in many guises.
The character Marlow could be mistaken for the shadow of Conrad, being used as a puppet to play out the atrocities of his memories. Marlow's progression up the river, which mirrors his personal progression, involves a constant tirade of questions (they are never answered) to himself, which could be seen as asking the reader to freely answer the questions for themselves.