Heart of Darkness – Chapter 2
Answer the following questions using quotes and specific evidence from the text:
1. What is the image that Marlow begins to develop about Kurtz and what does this image foreshadow about what he may find when he reaches his destination (Kurtz)?
2. What is the prevailing metaphor Marlow uses to describe traveling up the river?
3. What metaphor does he use to describe the steamboat?
4. Explain what happens when the steamboat is attacked and the actions that Marlow takes and why?
5. Describe the person Marlow meets at the Inner Station and explain his significance to the overall plot.
6. What does Marlow mean when he says that women must be helped to “stay in that beautiful world of their own” (p. 47)?
7. What surprising sentence did Kurtz add to his pamphlet long after he wrote it? What might have motivated him to write it?
8. On what suspenseful note does Conrad end the second installment of the novel?