Reading responce post 1: Into Africa

Much like Frankenstein, Heart of Darkness uses a frame story of Marlow (our protagonist) reflecting aboard a ship (at an undisclosed future date) that Britain two was once one of the dark places of the world this train of though then prompts him to tell his fellows of his ill fated journey into the heart of Africa up the Congo river, in this segment I find the human hierarchy and power itself is explored in great detail. At the bottom are the actual Africans, whom are used to build up the power and status of the whites. The whites of course treat the Africans horribly and consider the Africans disposable (their is an excellent sequence where Marlow reflects on the similarity between the rusting broken machinery by the side of the road and the rotting broken blacks beside it). This of course is terrible but then you realise that the whites working their the local managers and accountants and traders are just as disposable in the eyes of their magical overlords back in Europe and have a terrible mortality rate themselves.

The use of that word magical leads to the next point,how underlings Deity their masters and how those who achieve power exploit it whether knowingly or unknowingly. Marlow received his job in the Congo because of his aunts connections -Marlow at the time being a Hamlet-Esq directionless twenty something. However apon arriving in the Congo the local whites seem to worship him as a messiah set by the Masters in Europe and give him an authority that is unprecedented for someone with his lack of experience, he is also repeatedly asked if he could "put in a good word"  by just about everyone this is incredibly perplexing for him since he doesn't even know who he'd give the word to. This serves to highlight the power that the foreign has over people the power that the unseen masters have over their underlings do to their mystical connection in spite of isolation. This mystical relationship as with all the other themes of this story come to ahead whenthe legendary trader Kurtz is introduced and it ids revealed that he achieved his position of power over the natives by convincing them he is a god.
This theme I find true within modern society how our isolation from our masters be they government, large companies or celebrities ensures our cooperation in spite of the lack virtues that would warrant such compliance.