{"product_id":"2940169460940","title":"Heart of Darkness","description":"\u003cp\u003eHeart of Darkness is a novella written by Joseph Conrad. It is widely regarded as a significant work of English literature and part of the Western canon. The story tells of Charles Marlow, an Englishman who took a foreign assignment from a Belgian trading company as a ferry-boat captain in Africa. Heart of Darkness exposes the myth behind colonization while exploring the three levels of darkness that the protagonist, Marlow, encountersamp;mdash;the darkness of the Congo wilderness, the darkness of the European's cruel treatment of the natives, and the unfathomable darkness within every human being for committing heinous acts of evil.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAlthough Conrad does not give the name of the river, at the time of writing the Congo Free State, the location of the large and important Congo River, was a private colony of Belgium's King Leopold II. Marlow is employed to transport ivory downriver. However, his more pressing assignment is to return Kurtz, another ivory trader, to civilization, in a cover-up. Kurtz has a reputation throughout the region. This symbolic story is a story within a story or frame narrative. It follows Marlow as he recounts from dusk through to late night, to a group of men aboard a ship anchored in the Thames Estuary his Congolese adventure. The passage of time and the darkening sky during the fictitious narrative-within-the-narrative parallel the atmosphere of the story.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"TCP Publications","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47169712029936,"sku":"2940169460940","price":0.54,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940169460940_p0.jpg?v=1763683246","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940169460940","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}