In HEART OF DARKNESS, Conrad`s most existential hero, Marlow, is the commander of a riverboat looking for ivory to trade in the Belgian Congo. His journey into the heart of the Congo is both a thrilling adventure and a symbolic excursion into the depths of the human psyche to confront the evil that exists there. Marlow`s encounter with the mysterious and corrupted Kurtz, who dies proclaiming the horror of what he found in the Congo, is the novel`s defining moment, when Marlow recognizes his kinship with Kurtz`s corruption. This insight enables Marlow to retreat from Kurtz`s world and return to England. Kurtz, in his attempts to reconcile his noble ideas with his greed, can`t survive.