The River

There are always objects which become symbols in a novel.
Here, we can identify many symbols as Marlow himself
Encounters them but struggles to interpret them adequately.

Justifications of these are shown in Conrad’s novel as he confronts an
Obscure reality and realizes how these symbols posses

Unsettling qualities that define reality. This conception of
Reality illustrates Marlow’s transformation as he travels upstream, the
Naïve illusions created by women, which depict all the social fictions and

Economic endeavor that colonialism involves. Also, Conrad
Yuxtaposes Marlow’s struggle upstream with the ease in which he travels back.

Upstream’s journey towards Kurtz represent his struggle to understand the

Present situation he has found himself. Also, this struggle might
Symbolize the river’s intention of expelling colonists from Africa, making their
Travel dawdling and intricate. The river separates the outside from the inside, opens a
Reality that resides beyond its currents, inside the gilded idea of imperialism.
Even though the river separates him from the heart of Africa,
At the end, the river is what keeps
Marlow coupled to Africa and recede along with the darkness forever.

The perfect example for this: “The brown current ran swiftly out of the
Heart of darkness, bearing us down towards the sea (…)
Ebbing, ebbing out of his heart into the sea of inexorable time (…) This

Choice of nightmares forced upon me in the tenebrous land (Conrad 127).
Only the river’s brown current is what relentlessly brings him back to the
Nihilistic white civilization, but, he is unable to leave the
Glimpses of darkness behind as he becomes internalized by it, and
Out of the white sepulchre that lays upon the colored map of Africa.