ll you, stepping delicately between the butcher and the policeman, in the holy terror of scandal and gallows and lunatic asylums---how can you imagine what particular region of the first ages a man's untrammeled feet may take him into by the way of solitude---utter solitude without a policeman---by the way of silence --- utter silence, where no warning voice of a kind neighbour can be heard whispering of public opinion. (49-50) In Europe, there are "kind neighbours" who are there to make sure that everything is all right. There is always someone to help when needed. On the other hand, once a man enters the Congo, he is all alone. He has no policeman and no kind neighbors. When Marlow enters the Congo and begins his voyage, he realizes the environment he comes from is not reality and the only way he is going to discover reality is to keep going up the river. Marlow's evolution from an average European to a man who realizes his own naivet, and ultimately discovers his own reality, is evident in his observations of how things are labeled in the Congo. It is these observations which change Marlow forever. Marlow first realizes the Europeans' flaw of not being able to give something a name of significance at the beginning of his voyage, just when he is about to reach the Congo: Once, I remember, we came upon a man of war anchored off the coast. There wasn't even a shed there, and she was shelling the bush. It appears the French had one of their wars going on there-abouts. Her ensign dropped like a limp rag; the muzzles of the long six inch guns stuck out all over the low hull; the greasy, slimy swell swung her up lazily and let her down, swaying her thin masts. In the empty immensity of earth, sky, and water, there she was, incomprehensible, firing into a conti...
