Heart of Darkness
Joseph Conrad

THE CHARACTERS

• THE HELMSMAN
  

  The African helmsman who steers the boat is an "athletic black belonging to some coast tribe" who dies from a spear wound during the attack on the steamer. He's a poor worker, swaggering and undependable, and Marlow (who calls him a fool) has to watch over him constantly. His death is largely his own fault, since he abandons his post to stand at the window and shoot wildly at the attacking tribe. "He had no restraint," Marlow comments, "no restraint- just like Kurtz" (Chapter II). Nevertheless, Marlow clearly values him. A subtle bond has grown between them through working together (Marlow is always thinking about the rewards of work), and he doesn't think getting to Kurtz was worth the death of his helmsman.

• THE MANAGER'S UNCLE
  

  The manager's uncle arrives at the Central Station while Marlow is delayed there repairing his boat. He's a short, fat man who heads something called the Eldorado Exploring Expedition- a group pretending to be interested in geography but really just out to get rich. Marlow compares them to burglars. He also overhears a conversation between the manager and his uncle in which the uncle proves to be particularly bloodthirsty, urging his nephew to exercise his authority and hang whomever he wants to.

• THE BOILER-MAKER
  

  Marlow's foreman is a mechanic at the Central Station, a boiler-maker by trade. His rough manners make him an object of disdain to the pilgrims, but he appeals to Marlow because of his capacity and enthusiasm for work. He makes only a brief appearance, just after Marlow's long talk with the brickmaker. His simple bluntness is a relief after the brickmaker's caginess, and his unrefined, working-class bearing forms an effective contrast to the brickmaker's effete, upper-class smugness.

• MARLOW'S AUNT
  

  Marlow's aunt is based, at least in part, on Marguerite Poradowska, who was related to Conrad by marriage. (She was not a true aunt, but he addressed her that way in his letters.) Like Marlow's aunt, Poradowska lived in Brussels and intervened on Conrad's behalf to secure him an appointment as captain of a Congo steamer.

  If Conrad was trying to depict Marguerite Poradowska realistically, the portrait was not a very flattering one. The aunt has been swayed by all the "rot let loose in print and talk just about that time," and she prattles about the high (and false) ideals she's been hearing about- civilizing the ignorant masses, and so forth- until finally Marlow has to remind her that the Company is run for profit. Her chatter prompts the first of several passages on "how out of touch with truth women are" (Chapter I)- a reflection that comes home during Marlow's encounter with Kurtz's Intended at the end of the novel.

• THE NARRATOR
  

  We learn very little about the actual narrator of the novel, the man who, aboard the Nellie anchored at the mouth of the Thames, hears Marlow spin his yarn and later reports it to us. But we can see that he has been affected by what he hears, as the change in imagery from the beginning to the end of the book indicates. At the outset he's impressed by all the light on the Thames, and he thinks about English nautical history in terms of light- for instance, "bearers of a spark from the sacred fire." By the end, his imagination is full of darkness. If Marlow intends his tale as a warning that we need to pay more heed to the "darkness"- the incomprehensible, the opposite of civilization and progress- then in the case of the narrator, at least, he's made his point.
  

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