Heart of Darkness

Character Guide

Spoiler-free — fuller detail (with spoilers, if you want them) lives in the reader's Guide tab.

Marlow (Charlie Marlow)

A seasoned English sailor who narrates the bulk of the story to friends aboard a boat on the Thames, recounting how he was hired to captain a steamboat for a Belgian trading company on the Congo River.

The Frame Narrator

An unnamed member of the group aboard the yawl Nellie who introduces the setting on the Thames and periodically breaks in as Marlow tells his tale.

Kurtz

A famed agent stationed deep in the interior at the Inner Station, spoken of by everyone Marlow meets as a brilliant, almost legendary figure who sends back more ivory than all other stations combined.

The Manager

The head of the Central Station, an outwardly unremarkable man who inspires unease in Marlow and seems curiously 'hollow' beneath his composed exterior.

The Brickmaker

An agent at the Central Station who, despite his title, makes no bricks and instead spends his time probing Marlow about his European connections and speaking reverently of Kurtz.

The Accountant

A meticulously dressed Company agent at the Outer Station who keeps immaculate books and appearance amid the surrounding squalor and suffering.

Marlow's Aunt

A well-connected relative whose enthusiasm and influence help Marlow secure his appointment as steamboat captain.

The Two Knitting Women

Two women seen knitting black wool in the Company's Brussels office, who strike Marlow as strange, fate-like guardians of the door he passes through before departing.

The Helmsman

An African crew member trained by Marlow's predecessor who steers the steamboat and whom Marlow comes to rely on during the journey upriver.

The Company's Doctor

A doctor in Europe who measures Marlow's skull before his departure, offering an odd, clinical remark about changes that happen 'inside' men who go to the tropics.

The Manager's Uncle

The blunt, cunning leader of the so-called 'Eldorado Exploring Expedition,' a group of agents whose greedy, disorganized arrival disrupts the Central Station.

Glossary

Pilgrims

Marlow's ironic nickname for the Company's armed agents at the Central Station, who carry long wooden staves and wander about with an air of purposeless piety.

The Company

The unnamed Belgian trading concern that employs Marlow and controls the ivory trade and stations along the river.

Sepulchral City

Marlow's term for Brussels, the Company's headquarters, evoking death, decay, and hidden corruption behind its respectable facade.

Ivory

The prized trade good driving the entire colonial enterprise, which comes to symbolize greed, obsession, and the moral emptiness of the 'civilizing' mission.

Rivets

Simple mechanical parts Marlow desperately needs to repair his steamboat; their absence symbolizes the gap between grand imperial rhetoric and the neglected practical work underneath it.

Harlequin

Marlow's nickname for the young Russian trader, based on his ragged clothing patched together from many colors of cloth like a jester's motley.

Motley

Multicolored, patched clothing, used to describe the Russian's eccentric appearance.

Martini-Henry rifle

A British breech-loading rifle of the period, seen aboard the steamboat's pilot-house as one of the tools of colonial control.

Fetish

A period term used by Europeans in the book to describe African ritual objects, and applied loosely to the reverence local tribes show toward Kurtz.

Grove of Death

Marlow's grim phrase for a shaded grove near the Outer Station where sick and dying African laborers are left to die, unremarked by the Company staff.

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