Heart of Darkness: Human or Human? Reading Heart of Darkness, we are immediately struck by the question of the “nature of man” and what it means to be human or humane. To be human means to have a mind, to live and function like a primate. On the other hand, to be human means to be tender, compassionate, loving, caring and empathetic. It is often assumed that to be human means to be human, but as Marlow learned on his excursion through the dark jungles of the Congo, one has nothing to do with the other. Marlow's first glimpse of the man's true self as he saw it began when he saw the gang of six chained men, as it is mentioned in the book, six black men chained together, obviously being treated like inferior, almost like slaves. "I could see every rib, the joints of their limbs were like knots in a rope; each had an iron collar around their neck, and all were connected together by a chain whose handles swung between them, clicking rhythmically. " (Conrad, p. 81) Seeing this atrocious spectacle of men being treated like savages, Marlow compares the white men who lead these chained men to devils, remarking that he had seen devils, but never devils who hunted other men. like cattle. Men who were no different from themselves except for the color of their skin. As Marlow continues his descent from the Congo, he begins to reflect on the river, as a river of truth and reality, because by transcending it, his ability to find the truth in any situation grows. At every turn, he learns that man's inhumanity to his kind is man's greatest sin. On page 106, Conrad talks about what Marlow felt when he was heading towards Kurtz's station, and he explains that he {Marlow} can sense the past, among the overwhelming realities brought on by the river, the trees and silence. a disturbing, noisy dream, remembered with wonder among the overwhelming realities of the strange world of plants and water and silence... When you have to deal with things like this, simple surface incidents, reality... .reality, I tell you, is fading away..