Marlow uses family connections to secure a steamboat captain job with a Belgian ivory trading company in the Congo.

Marlow visits the Company's Belgian offices, signs documents, and meets his employers before departing for Africa.

Marlow arrives at the Outer Station and first hears of Kurtz from the Company accountant.

Marlow reaches the Central Station and learns the steamboat he is meant to captain has been wrecked.

The Eldorado Exploring Expedition arrives at the Central Station and takes over the camp.

Marlow overhears the General Manager and his uncle conspiring about Kurtz's continued refusal to return downriver.

The repaired steamboat departs the Central Station and heads upriver toward Kurtz's Inner Station.

Arrows fly from the jungle and strike the boat, killing the African helmsman at the wheel.

The steamboat arrives at Kurtz's Inner Station, where the Russian trader intercepts the crew on the bank.

Marlow spots severed heads mounted on stakes surrounding Kurtz's compound.

Kurtz is carried out of his cabin on a stretcher and brought aboard the steamboat.

Marlow discovers that Kurtz has escaped the boat and crawled into the jungle during the night.

Marlow finds Kurtz in the jungle and persuades him to return to the steamboat without alerting the locals.

Kurtz dies aboard the steamboat, whispering 'the horror, the horror' as his final words.

Marlow visits Kurtz's fiancée and lies, telling her that Kurtz's last words were her name.

Marlow secures a job as a steamboat captain through family connections and travels to work for a Belgian ivory company in the Congo. After arriving at the Outer Station and first hearing of the legendary trader Kurtz, Marlow presses on to the Central Station, where he discovers his boat has been wrecked and must oversee months of costly repairs. When the repaired steamboat finally departs upriver, the crew endures a violent arrow attack that kills their helmsman before arriving at Kurtz's Inner Station. There, Marlow meets the devoted Russian trader, witnesses the horrors of Kurtz's compound, and watches as the gravely ill Kurtz is carried aboard the steamboat. Kurtz attempts one last desperate escape into the jungle before Marlow retrieves him, but Kurtz dies on the return journey downriver. Back in Europe, Marlow cannot bring himself to tell Kurtz's fiancée the truth and lies to her about his final words.

The headline journey from the Congo to Kurtz and back.

Marlow and four companions sit aboard the Nellie on the Thames as Marlow begins recounting his Congo journey.

Marlow meets two women knitting black wool at the entrance to the Company's offices.

The Company doctor measures Marlow's skull and notes that most men he examines never return from Africa.

A Swedish captain ferries Marlow upriver and mentions a man who previously made the journey and hanged himself.

Marlow encounters a group of African laborers dying slowly in the jungle near the Outer Station.

Marlow spends ten days at the Outer Station learning that Kurtz sends more ivory than all other agents combined.

Marlow meets the brickmaker at the Central Station and notices a striking painting Kurtz made a year earlier.

A warehouse burns down at the Central Station while Marlow is overseeing steamboat repairs, causing chaos among the agents.

The Eldorado Exploring Expedition departs the camp, and Marlow later hears that all of their donkeys died.

The crew stops at an abandoned riverside hut and collects free firewood stacked neatly outside it.

Marlow throws the dead helmsman's body overboard, upsetting both the European and African crew members for different reasons.

The Russian trader explains that the locals attacked the steamboat because they feared Kurtz would be taken away.

Kurtz's elaborately dressed African mistress stands on the shore watching as the boat prepares to leave the Inner Station.

The steamboat breaks down during the return journey, delaying the crew and worsening Kurtz's condition.

Marlow returns to Europe after his illness and is deeply unsettled by the smugness and complacency of those around him.

Before departing, Marlow encounters a series of unsettling signs at the Company's offices, from two women knitting black wool to a doctor who coolly measures his skull. Along the route to the Congo, a Swedish captain warns Marlow with the tale of a man who made the same journey and then hanged himself. At the Outer Station and Central Station, Marlow witnesses the chaos of colonial enterprise firsthand, including dying laborers, a mysterious painting by Kurtz, and a warehouse fire that sweeps through the camp. The journey upriver brings new horrors, culminating in the helmsman's death during an arrow attack and a tense exchange with the fanatical Russian trader at the Inner Station. Marlow watches Kurtz's African mistress stand silently on the shore as the boat prepares to depart, and the return journey is further delayed by a mechanical breakdown. Marlow eventually makes it back to Europe a changed man, deeply unsettled by the self-satisfied complacency of everyone around him.

The supporting moments that flesh out Marlow's dark passage.

Marlow's aunt, who arranged his posting, sincerely believes the Company is a humanitarian mission rather than a profit venture.

Marlow watches a French warship firing cannons into an empty stretch of African jungle with no apparent purpose.

Marlow sees African workers locked in chains building a railway at the Outer Station, overworked and brutalized.

Promised rivets for the steamboat never arrive at the Central Station, leaving Marlow unable to complete his repairs.

Marlow begins to suspect the steamboat was deliberately sunk to prevent him from ever reaching Kurtz.

Marlow refuses to navigate the fog-covered river at night and anchors the boat over the General Manager's objections.

Locals shriek through the thick fog surrounding the boat, and a crew member asks Marlow to hand over captives for cannibalism.

Marlow assumes Kurtz must be dead after the helmsman is killed, growing despondent that his entire journey was in vain.

The Russian trader reveals that Kurtz persuaded a local tribe to worship him as a god and used them to raid other villages.

Marlow reads Kurtz's report for the International Society and finds a postscript commanding Europeans to exterminate all the brutes.

The General Manager tells Marlow that Kurtz's methods, though profitable, have made the entire region unworkable for future trading.

The Russian trader confesses that Kurtz himself gave the order for the arrow attack on Marlow's steamboat.

Kurtz hands Marlow his personal papers and letters, entrusting him to safeguard Kurtz's reputation after death.

Marlow, recovering from near-fatal illness, concludes that Kurtz had something to say while he himself had nothing.

Marlow tears out Kurtz's extermination postscript before handing the report to a journalist who comes to collect it.

From the outset, Marlow's mission is shadowed by self-deception: his aunt believes the Company is a humanitarian project and Marlow cannot persuade her otherwise. The journey along the African coast exposes the senseless violence of colonialism, including a warship shelling an empty jungle and enslaved workers building a railway for no clear purpose. At the Central Station, delays mount as promised rivets never arrive and Marlow grows suspicious that the steamboat was deliberately wrecked to keep him from reaching Kurtz. The fog-shrouded approach to the Inner Station forces harrowing decisions, and Marlow uncovers the full depth of Kurtz's crimes through the Russian trader's confessions and Kurtz's own written postscript demanding extermination. The General Manager's cold reaction to Kurtz's methods confirms that the Company's concern is profit rather than morality, and Marlow is left carrying Kurtz's papers and his terrible legacy back to Europe. There, Marlow quietly removes the damning postscript before handing Kurtz's article to a journalist, practicing the same comfortable self-deception he found so troubling in others.