Marlow grows in awareness of imperialism's evil as he travels into the Belgian Congo. Notably, it is his aunt, a female, who helps him get the job. She believes Europeans are doing good by going to the Congo and bringing Christianity and civilization to the Native peoples.

Marlow is less naive than his aunt, but to some extent, he shares in her thinking until he has the shock of arriving in Africa. Once there, he realizes that Christian or civilizing influences have nothing to do with the European presence. The Native people are brutally and shockingly exploited, and the emphasis is on profit to a cruel degree. Kurtz's mad behavior has been tolerated thus far, because of the amount of profit he brings in.

Actually witnessing imperialism firsthand, Marlow is able to perceive that the system is evil to the core. He comes home shattered and changed by his knowledge, with a much more cynical view of mankind. It is particularly mankind that he condemns. At the end, when he goes to visit Kurtz's fiancee, he tells her a lie about Kurtz's last words, because he does not want to disillusion her and other women's conviction that Kurtz was doing noble work and bringing civilization to the Congo. It is important to him that European women stay innocent and believe in the lie that imperialism is a good.

As the story opens with the frame of Marlow talking to other sailors about the Congo as they sit in a boat on the Thames, Marlow asserts that the evils of imperialism are universal and points to the Roman conquest of Britain as equally brutal as the European conquest of Africa. This suggests that by this time, he is distancing himself from what happened and beginning to rationalize it. However, the power of his story is such that the reader comes away with a sense of horror and a less distanced perspective.

Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness focuses on the journey that Marlow takes into the heart of Africa. It's a trip he's dreamt of taking his entire life. His opportunity comes when Kurtz, a trading station manager, needs to be rescued from the Belgian Congo.

As he journeys down the snake-like river into the deepest parts of the country, he encounters savagery and opportunities for corruption. Rather than the exciting and beautiful land he expected to find, the trip instead shows him how different, separate, and dark the world can be. By the time he finds Kurtz, he realizes that he has already been corrupted. Kurtz was sent to civilize the natives of the Belgian Congo and instead has become their savage leader.

Marlow, once carefree and excited to discover the world, is broken and disappointed by what he finds. His journey into Africa is very much his coming-of-age story. He enters the country a boy full of wonder and leaves a man, hardened by the harsh realities of life.

Marlow is portrayed as an experienced sailor, who is introspective, wise, and philosophical. As he narrates the story about his adventures deep into the Congolese jungle, Marlow is compared to "a meditating Buddha," which suggests that he is an enlightened individual with supreme knowledge.

Before Marlow began his journey to Africa, he was a naive, enthusiastic young man, who was fascinated with the "blank spaces" on maps. Marlow ended up getting a job working for the Company and started his journey into the enigmatic, dangerous African forest. Along the way, Marlow witnesses firsthand the disastrous effects of imperialism and gains insight into the corrupt nature of the human soul. At the Outer Station, Marlow experiences the inefficiency of the Company and its disregard for human life. Marlow's description of the station illuminates the waste and lack of organization involved in imperial conquests. On his journey to meet the revered, mysterious Kurtz, Marlow interacts with selfish, nefarious individuals like the Accountant and the Manager, who are only focused on advancing in the Company.

When Marlow finally arrives at the Inner Station, he is disgusted to meet Kurtz, who has completely corrupted his soul while living in the depths of the Congolese jungle. Marlow learns about Kurtz's brutal raids, tyrannical leadership, and utter disregard for humanity. Following his expedition, Marlow develops into an enlightened, mature individual, who has negative opinions regarding imperial conquest and the nature of the human soul. Overall Marlow has become a wiser man with unique knowledge regarding "the heart of darkness" after he travels deep into the Congolese jungle and interacts with Kurtz.

In Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Marlow is rarely directly involved in the action of the story, and serves mainly as a narrator who relates the story of Kurtz's degradation. Be that as it may, Marlow does not escape the narrative unscathed, and he changes from an idealistic and excited young boy into a man hardened by the evils dwelling within the human heart.

Marlow tells us that he was passionate about maps as a young boy and dreamed of traveling to distinct locales, especially Africa. From this description, we can surmise that Marlow, like many young children, was idealistic and a touch naive. Moreover, we can assume that he considered traveling to be adventurous and full of excitement. By the time Marlow finds Kurtz and witnesses the man's death, however, things have changed. At that point in the story, Marlow has come to recognize the evil corruption governing the European presence in Africa, and he regards it with revulsion. That is not to say, however, that Marlow is entirely embittered by the end of the story. It would be more accurate to say that he regards exploration more realistically and no longer entertains naive boyhood fantasies. As such, we can see that, through the course of the narrative, Marlow matures considerably and is better equipped to view colonization from a critical point of view.

Another significant change is Marlow's perception of civilization and civilized human beings. As the other answers to this question suggest, Marlow begins as a young man with an idealistic view of imperialism as a civilizing force filling in the blank spaces of the map. His view of imperialism changes once he realizes that it is actually a corrupt moneymaking scheme that depends upon slavery and that drives its perpetrators mad. However, this critique of imperialism is also a subtle critique of civilization itself, or, at the very least, civilization as conceived by Western Europeans. While Marlow originally seems to think that civilization is a stabilizing force that harnesses and controls humanity's so-called "barbaric" qualities, he gradually realizes that the "civilizing" project of imperialism is, in fact, utterly barbaric, nothing more than a violent effort to forcibly steal natural resources from other people. Thus, Marlow's experience with imperialism causes him to realize that European civilization, far from eradicating or controlling humanity's violent impulses, actually often relies upon said violent impulses. Accordingly, by the end of the narrative, civilization as a stable system of order is thrown into doubt, and Marlow realizes that "civilized" men are violent and lawless, though they hypocritically pretend that they carry out violence in the name of enlarging the civilized world.

Marlow's change comes from within, a change in his idealism and his view of the people who work on the African river. At first, he is appalled by the squalor and disease present in the native people, and impressed by the Accountant, who keeps a proper, civilized appearance. However, as the story continues, he realizes that much of the horrors are endemic to the Imperialist mission itself; he sees a French ship firing into the underbrush with no actual target, and realizes that paranoia can drive men insane. Meeting Kurtz is the final blow to his belief system; Kurtz's total lack of empathy and his apparent insanity is contrasted with Kurtz's immense charisma and eloquence, showing Marlow that an educated and civilized man can have a "heart of darkness" and change under pressure. Without social norms, Kurtz's dark heart emerged and ruled his actions; Marlow sees that all men have the same potential, even himself, and his outlook is forever altered.

How does Marlow evolve as a character throughout Heart of Darkness?

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) presents the reader with a classic heroic quest in his novel Heart of Darkness. Narrator Charlie Marlow seeks to search for truth and knowledge in his soul based on his experiences in life. He looks to find the meaning of life on his journey to Africa. Conrad structures his novel in three parts broken down into two time frames: the present, where Marlow relates his story, and the past, where he works his way up the river toward the evil ivory trader Kurtz.

As the novel unfolds, Marlow is an honest and moral experienced seaman on a quest to find his self. He wants to discover the light in his soul. He desires to rid his soul of the darkness found deep inside human beings. As he relates his tale, the reader learns that his journey’s end “has been one of the dark places of the earth.”

Marlow sails for the African coast on a French steamer and on the voyage he is disturbed at the mistreatment of African natives:

“They were dying slowly—it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now—nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom. Brought from all the recesses of the coast in all the legality of time contracts, lost in uncongenial surroundings, fed on unfamiliar food, they sickened, became inefficient, and were then allowed to crawl away and rest.”

When Marlow finally reaches the central trading station, he witnesses even worse abuses of the native residents and begins to peer into the darkness of the human souls of the abusers and becomes even more disturbed: “I had to wait in the station for ten days—an eternity.”

At the station, Marlow meets Kurtz, the trading post agent. Although he is surrounded by starvation, Marlow learns he had come to the Central Station years earlier and initially had good intentions. However, the traveler becomes suspicious since everyone seems to hate Kurtz. They wish him ill-will and even death. At this point, the protagonist still feels sympathy for him as a victim of such hatred.

After arriving at his African destination, Marlow witnesses still more atrocities. He learns that Kurtz has ordered attacks on innocent pilgrims and natives. His underlying goal was not to aid the native peoples, but to collect ivory at any cost for trading and profit. He also took advantage of natives who looked upon him as a god. The natives worshipped Kurtz by performing “unspeakable rites.” From Kurtz’s house, Marlow notices “barbarous ornaments.” Kurtz has surrounded his house with a fence. Upon the fence posts, he sees human heads mounted.

Upon his return to Europe, Marlow recognizes the ignorance of the supposedly civilized people. He found them to be pompous and totally unaware of the real nature of human beings.

Marlow changes by the novel’s end. When his quest begins, he is naïve, much like Kurtz. He realizes that Kurtz originally had good intentions as an idealist who planned to reform the natives. However, greed and the lust for wealth and power were inside him and corrupted him. Marlow resists Kurtz’s fate, but he knows there are no simple answers and life’s meaning is difficult to find. Life is a moral struggle and,

“the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky—seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.”

How does Marlow evolve as a character throughout Heart of Darkness?

As Marlow's telling of the story is used as a framing device, we are given an impression of a completely developed character before we see him as he was at the beginning of the narrative. While the character is very much the same man, there are quite a few interesting contrasts. At first, Marlow is decidedly a more simple person. Since he was a child, he has longed for exploration, wanting only to visit parts of the world that had previously been untouched by man. Furthermore, he had a very naive view about the nature of man, dividing all of humankind between those that are civilized and those that are savage.

Marlow's time in the Congo changes him, to say the least. Most importantly, he is profoundly affected by the transformation that he sees in Kurtz. No longer does he believe that there are "light" and "dark" places in the world. Instead, he begins to see all of civilization as a blanket of lies that cover up the true darkness of humanity. In the framing device section of the book, he refers to London as a dark place, understanding that the same darkness that transformed Kurtz lives inside all men, just waiting to be fed.

How does Marlow evolve as a character throughout Heart of Darkness?

Initially, Marlow tells his story in retrospect and is described as a "meditating Buddha," which illustrates his wisdom and enlightenment. When Marlow was a young man, he wished to travel to Africa to visit the "blank spaces" on the map. Marlow was intrigued with the enigmatic atmosphere surrounding the unknown. He joined the Company, which traded ivory from the Congo. Throughout Marlow's journey, he witnesses the inefficient, insincere employees of the Company. Marlow began his journey with certain idealistic impressions of European civilization and held onto the naive belief that Europeans were bastions of civility and morality. However, Marlow's perception begins to change after he gradually witnesses the chaotic nature of the Outer and Central Stations. Marlow's interactions with important employees reveal the debased nature of the Company and are an indictment of imperialism. The Manager is depicted as a scheming liar while the Accountant is portrayed as a greedy, prejudiced individual.

As Marlow continues his journey into the middle of the Congo, he rests his confidence on the mysterious Mr. Kurtz. Marlow is fascinated by the stories of Kurtz's success and hopes that Kurtz will turn out to be a benevolent ambassador of European civilization that will justify the Company's goals. However, Marlow discovers that Kurtz is a tyrant, who rules over the Natives as a god. Kurtz has abandoned his philanthropic ideals in exchange for power and influence. By the end of Marlow's journey, he gains insight into the "heart of darkness," which describes humanity's inherent wickedness as well as the unknown Congolese jungle. Marlow evolves from being a naive, impressionable young man, to a jaded, insightful individual, who has experienced the worst of human nature. Marlow truly understands that "The mind of man is capable of anything - because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future." 

How does Marlow evolve as a character throughout Heart of Darkness?

There is a definite sense in which Marlow changes dramatically as a result of his experiences with Kurtz and what he learns and witnesses. In one sense, Marlow, by the end of the story, seems to have much in common with the ancient mariner in Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," in the way that he seems fated to talk about and share what has happened to him. Note how Marlow describes his feelings and attitudes towards life after he returns to Europe from Africa, finding himself once again in the "sepulchral city" which he went to before accepting his commission, with people who continue to "dream their insignificant dreams":

They treaspassed upon my thoughts. They were intruders whose knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretence, because I felt so sure they could not possibly know the things I knew... I had no particular desire to enlighten them, but I had some difficulty in restraining myself from laughing in their faces, so full of stupid importance.

Marlow's character therefore irrevocably changes because of the "heart of darkness" that he witnesses in the character of Kurtz, and this is of course strengthened by the recognition that this "heart of darkness" is in all humans. Marlow glimpses a hidden truth, and, to a certain extent, he is unable to re-enter normal life once again in the same way precisely because, having seen the truth about the human condition, he cannot participate in the same "meaningless" activity that he sees everybody else engaging in.

How does Marlow shape our reading of Kurtz in Heart of Darkness?

Marlow acts as the reader's moral compass, observing many cruel, shocking, and repulsive sights and witnessing acts of stupidity and moral degradation. His reactions to all he experiences and the judgments he makes provide the moral framework of the novel. The reader's view of Kurtz is shaped by Marlow's relationship with him and by Marlow's final assessment.

Kurtz is presented as the greatest of the ivory traders, the agent who sends more ivory out of the interior than anyone else. Marlow describes Kurtz' appearance in a startling image: "death carved out of old ivory." Marlow associates Kurtz with death, strongly influencing the reader's emotional reaction to Kurtz.

Marlow's narrative detailing the life Kurtz lives at his inner station repulses the reader, just as Marlow is repulsed. Exercising power over the natives and constructing his fence of heads, Kurtz also engages in unspeakable, degrading rites in the jungle. Kurtz becomes a satanic figure, a devil; Marlow associates him with the powers of darkness through numerous instances of devil imagery. Kurtz has "kicked himself loose of the earth" and lives in "impenetrable darkness." He exalts himself: "My Intended, my ivory, my station, my river . . . ." It is this love of self that leads to his victimizing others.

In dealing with Kurtz, however, even Marlow is not completely invulnerable to his power. He begins to identify with Kurtz and merges with him psychologically in the final confrontation in the jungle at night; the jungle drums merge with Marlow's own heartbeat so that he cannot distinguish between them. When Kurtz "rises before him like . . . a night shadow," Marlow faces a moment of truth. He must choose. He can join Kurtz in degradation, abandon him, or overpower him and bring him out of the jungle. For Marlow to have been brought to such a moral crisis emphasizes the power of Kurtz' being: Kurtz is evil itself.

However, the reader's assessment of Kurtz is not final yet, because Marlow's relationship with him continues to be dynamic. After dragging Kurtz out of the jungle and back to the ship, Marlow continues to interact with him. He rejects Kurtz' evil, but he does not reject him as a man. Marlow attends to Kurtz, even comforting him as he lies dying. Marlow acts with compassion and human charity, prompting the reader to see Kurtz as a desperate, broken human soul. With Kurtz' last words, "the horror, the horror," he reasserts his own humanity, and mortality. Marlow's experience with the dying man adds another dimension to Kurtz' character.

How does Marlow shape our reading of Kurtz in Heart of Darkness?

In Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Marlow is new to the world of the Company. While he has experience sailing, he has never visited the Congo, the "heart of darkness" in Africa. Here is treasure trove in exporting Africa's valuable resources; for Marlow, who acts as the story's narrator, it is a place of mystery.

Through Marlow's eyes the reader sees what Marlow believes Kurtz is, and then what has happened to him. (Ultimately, Kurtz feels as if a great man has been lost; he becomes sympathetic enough that he cannot tell Kurtz's fiancée the truth of who and what Kurtz had become—at the story's end.)

When Marlow fears that Kurtz may be dead as they travel the river, his disappointment is that he won't be able to speak to the man. This infers that Marlow believes there would be value in doing so.

The point was in his being a gifted creature, and that of all his gifts the one that stood out preeminently, that carried with it a sense of real presence, was his ability to talk, his words—the gift of expression, the bewildering, the illuminating, the most exalted and the most contemptible, the pulsating stream of light, or the deceitful flow from the heart of an impenetrable darkness.

Before Marlow even meets Kurtz, he has a strong desire to learn about the man—his experiences and knowledge. Marlow's overwhelming desire to meet the man who he has heard so much about colors our perceptions of Kurtz, presenting him at first as a sympathetic character. By the end, we need to decide for ourselves what kind of man Kurtz really was.

Marlow notes:

Your strength comes in...your power of devotion, not to yourself, but on an obscure, back-breaking business. And that's difficult enough. Mind, I am not trying to excuse or even explain—I am trying to account to myself for—for—Mr. Kurtz—for the shade of Mr. Kurtz.

Once again, Marlow is making a case for Kurtz, almost assembling his defense before they meet. As they approach to make a landing at the Inner Station, Marlow's binoculars find an unusual sight waiting for them:

...its first result was to make me throw my head back as if before a blow. Then I went carefully from post to post with my glass, and I saw my mistake...food for thought and also for the vultures...They would have been even more impressive, those heads on the stakes, if their faces had not been turned to the house.

And...

...I want you to clearly understand...They only showed that Mr. Kurtz lacked restraint...that there was something wanting in him.

These excuses seem out of place—especially in that Marlow insists..."Mr. Kurtz was no model of mine." Perhaps his fascination for the Kurtz—the myth of the man—overwhelmed Marlow's good sense. Marlow believes that the environment helped to ruin Kurtz:

I think [the wilderness] had whispered to him things about himself that he did not know...

Throughout Marlow's trip to the Inner Station, his thoughts, his imagination, the mystery and mythology that surround Kurtz, fuel Marlow's desire to meet and understand Kurtz. It is not until they meet that Marlow understands Kurtz's nature, and his madness.

[Kurtz] is revealed upon acquaintance to be a dying, deranged, and power-mad subjugator of the African natives. Human sacrifices have been made to him.

We are unprepared for who Kurtz really is by Marlow's perceptions prior to their meeting. Marlow struggles with his perceptions and the truth of the man.

What are the ways that Marlow and Kurtz are changed in Heart of Darkness?

Marlow's change is more obvious, since he is relating the story and explaining how his views became altered. He started as a hard-working, young man, without existential worries or fear of mankind's inner brutality. Each event serves to wear away some of that certainty until he is consumed by pessimism and indecision, scared of the darkness he observes in others and terrified that he himself may be capable of such things. His change is overt and specific.

Kurtz's change is explained, but not present as an event; when the reader finally sees Kurtz, he is the final throes of his jungle-induced insanity. He has, by the sheer power of his personality, taken control of the ivory trade and cowed the native peoples into submission with brutality and eloquence, but in his quest for power he has gone too far from his civilized morality. When The Intended, his lover, speaks of him, she describes a man very different from the Kurtz that Marlow met:

"'...Who was not his friend who had heard him speak once?' she was saying. 'He drew men towards him by what was best in them.' She looked at me with intensity. 'It is the gift of the great...'"
(Conrad, Heart of Darkness, gutenberg.org)

And yet, many of her descriptions work for the insane and self-glorifying Kurtz who died, in his own mind, alone in an uncaring world. It is more likely that Kurtz always had the potential for his insanity and cruelty, but kept it locked inside as long as he had civilization as an example. The uninhibited jungle allowed him free reign, and that freedom destroyed his mind and body.

In what ways does Marlow change throughout his journey and after he meets Kurtz in Heart of Darkness?

Marlow changes extensively throughout the course of Heart of Darkness. In the beginning, Marlow is very naïve and foolish when it comes to Africa, the jungle, the natives, and—most importantly—Kurtz. He makes the mistake of assuming that Kurtz is a noble, respectable manager and person when we learn quickly that he is not. As Marlow journeys closer and closer to the Inner Station and learns more of Kurtz and the various opinions people hold of him, Marlow becomes more suspicious. By the time he reaches the Inner Station, it is quite clear that Kurtz has de-evolved into some kind of madman or monster. As the novella reaches its ending, however, and Marlow takes work of Kurtz’s death home to Kurtz’s fiancé, he learns about another side of the man, a more noble, honorable, and respectable side that forces Marlow to question further exactly what happened in the Congo, the heart of darkness.