Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, “opens at sunset with Marlow in the company of four friends aboard the yawl Nellie at anchor in the Thames Estuary waiting for the tide to turn ” (Knowles and Moore 173). Marlow tells the story of his personal experience in the Congo. He, as a sailor on a steamship, left Europe for Africa, where “one of the dark places of the earth” was located (Conrad 3). His first assignment was to rescue Kurtz, who was one of the company's top agents in Africa and had fallen ill. Marlow traveled along the Congo River. On the way to the Congo, he “passed through several abandoned villages” (Conrad 17). He felt that “the silent desert surrounding this speck of cleared earth struck him as something great and invincible” (Conrad 20). He passed through three stations of his company: Outer Station, Central Station and Inner Station. He saw the despicable behavior of European traders towards the native Africans, just for the ivory. Marlow presented this invisible violence in the cruel suffering of the indigenous Congolese. He saw the corruption of the imperialists during his trip. He witnessed the scenes of “horrors” in Congo. He was shocked by the “horrors”. He described his pilgrimage as nightmares. Conrad uses a narrative plot (Chantler 11) to show his attitude towards imperialism in the depiction of the different stations along Marlow's journey and the people Marlow encounters. When Marlow arrived at the first Station, the Outer Station, he witnessed the treatment of the natives for the first time. He recounted, “There were strong, vigorous, red-eyed devils, who swayed and drove” (Conrad 13) the natives. Marlow saw a pile of rotting machinery on the ground and a group of black people trudging along… middle of paper… ath” (Conrad 54). Kurtz's miserable end signals the death of European imperialism. “All Europe contributes to the realization of Kurtz” (Conrad 45), and even goes into the heart of darkness. Work cited Bloom, Harold. Giuseppe Corrado. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2003. Print. Chantler, Ashley. Heart of Darkness: Character Studies. London: Continuum, 2008. Print. Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. New York: Dover, 2013. Print.Goonetilleke, DCRA “Heart of Darkness: Overview.” Reference Guide to Short Fiction.Ed. Noelle Watson. Detroit: St. James Press, 1994. Literary Resource Center.Web. May 11, 2014. Knowles, Owen, and Gene M. Moore. The Oxford Reader's Companion to Conrad.New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Print.Watt, Ian P. Essays On Conrad. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. eBookCollection (EBSCOhost). Network. May 7 2014.