The setting of the start is on the river Thames, “the beginning of an interminable waterway” as though the sea is endless and you can follow it “to the uttermost ends of the earth”. The time of day for the start of the book is near sunset as
“The day was ending in a serenity of still and exquisite brilliance.” The language contained at the start really creates an image of calmness, peace and natural beauty, for example “the water shone pacifically; the sky, without a speck, was a benign immensity of unstained light.” However this contrasts with the image of civilisation which seems “angered by the approach of the sun” and “condensed into a mournful gloom, brooding motionless over the biggest and greatest town on earth”. This is one of the main themes of the novel, that “civilisation” corrupts and taints everything and brings darkness, war and madness. In the text it’s almost as if we kill the sun,
“Stricken to death by the touch of that gloom brooding over a crowd of men.” The beauty created by nature almost seems tainted by men and civilisation.
Conrad then personifies the Thames, making it sound old and weary as if we control it “after ages of good service”. It then goes on to say that it is “crowded with memories” This conjures the image of how nature seems unchangeable and will last for ever, while men do not last for long at all and how only some are “like jewels flashing in the nights of time” Then the narrator tells us how the river “had known and served all the men of whom the nation was proud” who had set out on glorious adventures, the “knights-errand of the sea” it is almost making it sound like these men went out for sacred or a higher purpose to promote the greatness of the British empire, as if they were “carrying messages of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire” However this introduces more themes to us, one about the mainstream belief in the Empire and Imperialism. Yet is also tells us about human nature, that it doesn’t change people will always be tempted by greed and that we are “hunters for gold or pursuers of fame …… bearing the sword”
The introduction to Heart of darkness is effective as it subtly acquaints us to the main themes that occur within the novel, even that Marlow followed the “dreams of men” “into the mystery of an unknown earth” and many others which occur later in the book, about imperialism, and the heart of darkness – civilisation.