"Heart of Darkness" many tragedies befall Charlie Marlow when he decides to take a trip to Africa. Thinking it would be fun Charlie decides to take a trip to Africa looking for European imperialism. When he reaches their, his career takes a whole new step, he is shocked to see how the whites were treating black people as their slaves (this is what is meant by "Heart of Darkness"). By the bewildered display he saw of what was happening in Africa he decides to change his career to help those who are in need of help of ending this destruction. But while he was helping the ones who needed to be free there were the whites who disagreed with his beliefs because they believe that blacks are meant to be slaves in this world. Throughout this book Charles faces through unbelievable problems that he has never ever encountered in his life before.
In Conrad's Heart of Darkness Marlowe, the main character, symbolizes the positiveness of Imperialism. Marlowe, as a character realizes the evil that negative Imperialism has caused and decides it is truly unnecessary. When Marlowe states, "I had got a heavenly mission to civilize you," (pg 92) he expresses his good intentions to help the Africans progress and advance. Furthermore, when he says, "I was an impostor," (pg 123) Marlowe recognizes the fact that he is an invader into a foreign land, yet he sticks to his moral values. Those who treated the novel as a metaphysical exploration into the heart of humankind looked at the long passages in which Marlow speculated on his own attraction to Kurtz and his own place in relation to the Africans and to the African land. Marlow is a metaphysical thinker. He habitually translates material reality into metaphysical ideas. The novel has two separate settings. One, the frame narrative, is the setting for the telling of the tale on a cruising yawl (sailing vessel) or yacht on the Thames River near London, England.