Question+1

The setting for the beginning of the book -- on a small sailing craft on a river as night falls -- and Marlow's comparison, by implication, of the dark heart of Africa (the Belgian congo) and the barbarian darkness on the northern fringes of the Roman Empire, both are examples of irony and foreshadowing. Discuss how one or both of these devices are developed and expanded as Marlow's adventure progresses.

Throughout the novel Marlow and his men travel farther and farther into the jungle to get Kurtz. As time goes on the jungle becomes darker to the men, and they become more fearful of what it maintains and symbolizes. In the beginning when Marlow talks of the Roman Empire he states "We live in the flicker," which implied that there is darkness throughout the world, but every once in awhile there is a moment of light when life is good. He talks of when the romans built a ship in only a month or two with a hundred men. This foreshadows his steamboat needing repairs. Also he tells his listeners to think of what the Romans went through, coming to a new land and travelling up river into areas which they know nothing about. There are savages and and sand banks. Having nothing to drink but the water in the Thames river. This would be scary. As the story proceeds Marlow and his men experience all of these things. They are living the story of the Empire who came to a new land. When he speaks of Africa and all the unknown there it is irony because it is how all the men feel about the jungle they encounter. All of this ties together in one way or another.

AH