Marlow's Transformation in Heart of Darkness by Joseph ConradAfter returning from a trip to the African Congo, Joseph Conrad said: "Before the Congo I was a simple animal", implying that only a select few of the rest of society have managed to overcome the animal state. Conrad had an attack of malaria and during his recovery underwent radical changes in his way of thinking. He began to despise his fellow Belgians and for a time was furious with them for their very existence. Leonard Dean's collection of Conrad's letters shows the writer's contempt for normal society after his journey: "Everything here disgusts me. Men and things, but above all men... they all have the gift of getting on my nerves." (103) Conrad eventually accepted himself as one of these people and began work on Heart of Darkness, a cathartic novel based on his diary written in the Congo. He wrote about Marlow, who will undertake a journey to the Congo and his own soul, in an attempt to discuss the evil experienced in Africa. Conrad presents a situation that he and Marlow are both familiar with and that the average listener cannot understand. Conrad was shocked and shaken by what he saw being practiced in the Congo, and with his statement solidifies his belief that a man cannot truly understand, sympathize, or feel anything meaningful on an emotional level unless he has also experienced the dark and sick side. of himself. Everything up until that point had merely scratched the surface of human nature. A human being needs suffering and experience with depravity before he can appreciate and embrace what is good in himself. Until then he is just an animal. Marlow goes to Africa on a mission, even though he is unaware of it. Jerome Thale compared Marl...... middle of paper ....../DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v407/n6800/full/407025a0_fs.htmlEvans, Robert O., "Conrad's Underworld" . Cambridge: Purdue Research Foundation, 1956. Guerard, Albert J., “The Journey Within,” 1958. Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press. Hewitt, Douglas, “Reassessment of Heart of Darkness.” Cambridge: Bowes & Bowes Publishers Ltd., 1952. Modern Fiction Studies, IX, n. 4 Winter '63-64. Cambridge: Purdue Research Foundation Reid, Stephen A., “The Unspeakable Rites in the Heart of Darkness,” Solzhenitsyn, Alexander, “What I Learned in the Gulag.” Excerpted and abridged from The Gulag Archipelago http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/4942/gulag.html Telgen, Diane, Novels for Students. 2 vols. Detroit: Gale Researcher, 1997. Thale, Jerome, "Marlow's Quest," 1955. Toronto: University of Toronto Quarterly, July XXIV.