Heart of Darkness as Booker’s Seven Basic Plots Analysis: Voyage and Return Plot

Plot Type : Voyage and Return

"Fall" into the Other World

Pack it up – we’re going to the Congo.

Marlow embarks on his journey aboard the steamboat and travels up the Congo River. He remarks that navigating the Congo is like "traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world." It is a totally alien place to him and he feels disconcerted by the unfamiliar terrain, the sense of timelessness, the Africans and drums surrounding him, the eerie silence, and the immensity of the forest. This all serves to render the African interior dream-like and absurd for Marlow.

Initial Fascination

Kurtz is the coolest dude on earth.

Though Marlow feels a great unease in the wilderness, he is at once fascinated and repulsed by the cries of the native Africans hidden in the surrounding bush. He goes so far as to say he hears a bit of humanity in those chilling screams and begins to identify with them. He also pays a great deal of attention to the actions of the hired cannibals on board. At this point, Marlow seems fascinated with the ‘foreigners,’ those who do not live by European customs.

Frustration Stage

They can’t see anything and people die.

This stage begins with the thick white fog that falls on the steamboat when they are deep in the interior. This renders them metaphorically blind. Because they cannot see where they are going, they must stop their forward movement. The interminable stop makes them jittery and uncomfortable, especially when they begin hearing savages in the bush. Then they are attacked by the native Africans. One of their crew – the black helmsman – becomes a casualty, and this plunges Marlow into horror.

Nightmare Stage

Heads on sticks.

Things actually look up for a while just before the real nightmare kicks in. Marlow meets the harlequin, a strange but harmless disciple of Kurtz, and learns more and more about the mystery man. However, the more he hears, the more troubled Marlow becomes. Kurtz has immense influence over the native Africans – even exercising the power to kill those who disobey him. Only when the harlequin leaves does he reveal that Kurtz ordered the attack on Marlow's steamboat. At last we learn that Kurtz is hostile to Marlow's decision to take him back to Europe. This nightmare stage culminates when we meet Kurtz, see that his illness has wasted him down to a living embodiment of Death, and witness his attempted escape into the interior – the very thing that drove him mad. The morning that the steamboat is leaving with Kurtz aboard, the native Africans become restless, which makes the pilgrims nervous. They almost come to blows, but Marlow scares the Africans away just in time.

Thrilling Escape and Return

Well, not everybody escapes.

Marlow scares the agitated native Africans with his steam-whistle and they make their escape with Kurtz intact. However, Kurtz dies along the way and Marlow is left to deal with his personal effects. His return to Belgium is not welcome as he had anticipated because his journey up the Congo has fundamentally changed him and he can no longer relate to the petty occurrences of daily life. He visits the Intended to give her Kurtz’s personal letters.