takes to discover the truth about himself (or herself). The journey may offer items of beauty: flowers, exotic birds or other wildlife. However, Conrad's warns the reader of what lies beneath the beauty: mystery, seduction, or dangerous knowledge: corruption. In each person's soul, it can be found quietly waiting. In many people it may remain dormant forever; in other cases, it presents itself and a battle for control ensues. In some cases, even with the light, darkness is triumphant, and this is at the core of Conrad's novel.

The first stop is the Lower Station. This symbolizes warning and mental confusion. Marlow is bewildered by what he sees—a cemetery of old machinery lying about rusting for no reason. Men are blasting with dynamite; there is nothing in their way, so it is pointless, but they continue. He notices the natives who are treated like the enemy: they are beaten, shackled, starving and lacking hope. They have a look of death about them.

The experience of stopping at the Lower Station is disturbing to Marlow. Symbolically, it is a warning of an imbalance within society, an illness that has struck the men working for the Company: it is a moral disease.

Marlow travels to the Central Station. He finds his ship is underwater; repairs must be made. Symbolically, this, too, is a warning: an obstacle stops one from moving further into the darkness.

Here again, things don't make sense. The parts Marlow needs do not arrive—repeatedly. He meets a brickmaker, though there are no bricks in sight. There is a hidden urgency here about Kurtz, and a resentment for him. Again, the darkness is present, but it becomes more pronounced, harder to predict or pass through. Marlow is troubled.

Finally, Marlow reaches the Inner Station, where the darkness is the strongest. He has been attacked by natives firing on the ship. Kurtz's home is surrounded by heads on stakes. There are signs of human sacrifice.

Here morality is gone, sacrificed on an alter of greed and insanity. Here the darkness is at its most dangerous. Marlow is seemingly able to resist it, but Kurtz has succumbed, so much that his soul has gone insane and cannot be retrieved. Kurtz is brought out of the jungle by Marlow, but darkness's evil is too strong to save Kurtz.

Symbolically, each station represents the journey into the darkness of the heart and mind. That darkness can lure one in and destroy the soul. This could apply to any situation where one is tempted to turn away from the light, and allow darkness to enter. To continue leads to destruction; turning back to the light in time leads to rescue.

In Joseph Conrad's novel, Heart of Darkness, there are three stations that Marlow visits on his trip through the Congo.

The second station is called the Central Station. It is at this location that Marlow is supposed to get his ship which will carry him to the third station (known as the Inner Station) to pick up Mr. Kurtz who has been in the interior of the jungle for an extremely long time. Rumor has it that he is ill, but no one has heard from him; the only way the Company still knows that he is alive is from the shipments of ivory that he continues to send back.

When Marlow reaches the Central Station, he meets the manager, the brickmaker, the manager's uncle and a mechanic whom he befriends; he also finds that his ship in under water. Another (junior) skipper had ripped the bottom of the ship open on the rocky bottom of the river and it sank. In order to continue his journey, Marlow will have to repair it, which he expects will take several months. He finds some difficulty getting parts to complete his task: he continues to order rivets, but the orders are, mysteriously, never filled. Eventually Marlow enlists the help of one of the mechanics (formerly a boiler-maker, a widow with six children), and although the rivets take their time arriving, they eventually show up.

Marlow is able to complete the repairs to his ship and resume his journey to find and retrieve Mr. Kurtz.

In Joseph Conrad's story, Heart of Darkness, when Marlow leaves England, and traveling in a French ship, down the coast of Africa, he enters the "mouth" of the Congo; from there he travels to the Lower Station.

Marlow must wait at the Lower Station for ten days before setting out two hundred miles overland in a caravan to where his steamer is waiting up the river at the Central Station.

Marlow's job is to travel into the heart of the Congo to find and bring back Kurtz, an employee of the company who does amazing work in shipping back enormous amounts of ivory—no one has heard from him in nine months: they only sense the company has that Kurtz is still alive is based on the fact that the ivory continues to arrive.

When Marlow lands at the Central Station (his second stop), he finds the ship that he is supposed to command is under water. So begins the extensive task of repairing it so that Marlow can continue his journey to fulfill the task at hand.

The third and last stop on Marlow's trip is the Inner Station, where Marlow eventually finds Kurtz. When he finally is able to get Kurtz on board, he turns the ship around with the intention of returning to England.

In Joseph Conrad's novel, Heart of Darkness, Marlow, while sitting on the ship called the Nellie, tells his tale of a trip he took into the heart of Africa. He tells his story to several men: one is the Director of Companies; one is a lawyer; another is an accountant; lastly, there is an unnamed man who is the narrator, recounting Marlow's tale.

Marlow recalls that he has been hired by the Company to captain a ship that will venture into the Congo and ultimately retrieve Mr. Kurtz and return with him to England.

The first station is called the Lower Station. Upon arriving, Marlow is distressed to see how the natives have been enslaved, how they are beaten and starving, working under white Company men who act as their guards. For Marlow it is a "vision of hell." There seems to be pandemonium everywhere: nothing seems to make sense—there are "loads of rusting ancient wreckage everywhere," and Marlow can seen an outcropping being blown up for no logical reason.

Marlow's trip continues. The second stop is the Central Station. It is here that Marlow is supposed to take over the ship he is to captain, however, it is underwater. It takes quite a while to make the vessel fit for navigation up the river. In fact, parts that he orders and waits weeks for seem to mysteriously never arrive from the Lower Station. It seems someone does not want him to complete his task. The two men that Marlow spends the most time with here are the manager and the brickmaker. The foreman, however, is helpful in getting the rivets Marlow needs to finish fixing his ship.

Ultimately, Marlow and his ship get underway, and after attacks by natives, and the loss of one of his men, Marlow makes it to the Inner Station, where Kurtz is: he has become something of a god to the people there, and it seems that Kurtz has gone mad. It appears that it may be impossible to remove Kurtz, especially as the natives do not want him to leave, but eventually, Marlow is successful in getting Kurtz on board, and getting the ship underway.

In Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, each station at which the protagonist, Marlow, stops has something important or puzzling.

In the first station, the Outer Station, when Marlow arrives, he sees Africa as it has become with the interference of the white man and his ferocious desire for more ivory. He sees the “deathlike indifference of unhappy savages.” A cliff is being blown-up for no good reason. It is not in the way. Machinery lies about unused and rusting away. The whites are particularly vicious with their "slaves." Many are diseased and starving to death.

Marlow meets the company's accountant at this location.

In less than two weeks, Marlow departs with about sixty men, all headed for the Central Station, their next stop. Here Marlow finds that someone has foolishly driven his boat (which is to carry him to the Inner Station) onto the rock bottom of the river that has ripped out its hull; this will probably take two months to fix. (It is underwater.) Marlow tries to get supplies (rivets), but for many weeks, the supplies mysteriously do not arrive even though they have been repeatedly ordered.

It is here that Marlow meets the manager and his uncle (who feel threatened by Kurtz), as well as a brickmaker who seems to make no bricks, and an engineer who is willing to help Marlow. Other groups visit the location, pilgrims pass through, and also:

...[a]n exploring party, the Eldorado Exploring Expedition...For the next six weeks, they appear in sections. A white man on a donkey leads each group, followed by a band of blacks. They are reckless, greedy, and cruel. They will “tear treasure out of the bowels of the land.” (e-Notes Summary/Analysis)

The last station, the Inner Station, is where Marlow will find Kurtz. But this place is full of insanity and death. Civilization has reached here even though Kurtz, a Company man, has lived with the natives for sometime. Kurtz is unwell, and seemingly mad. Around his hut there are stakes with human heads on them. It seems there have been instances of human sacrifice. The natives worship Kurtz and do now want him to leave. This then, is the heart of darkness, not only found within Kurtz, but in the center of the jungle which is a place of mystery and the unknown.

Each station has something different to teach Marlow, and secrets that are closely kept.