Difficult Heart of Darkness Quiz | 10 Questions | Literature

Answer: False

The narrator is at first unsure if everyone else is sleeping because it is so dark in the ship that he cannot see anything clearly. When Marlow makes an outlandish joke about their lives as sailors, someone interrupts him, telling him to be civil in what he says.

Answer: The manner in which notes were added to the book

Marlow fancies that the notes are written in cipher instead of some foreign language. When he return the tattered book to its original owner, the Russian "harlequin", he is disappointed to learn that they are only in a foreign language.

Answer: The Romans

When the wandering sailor Marlow first speaks up, he says "this too was once one of the dark places of the earth" and describes the conquests of the Romans and how they could never relate to their sheer desires borne out of savagery because of the conveniences of civilization since then.

He later goes on to describe his journey down the Congo River and, in doing so, creates a parallel between the Romans and European missionaries.

Answer: Hanged himself

Marlow is appalled by the statement and cries "Hanged himself!" When he inquires about the reason for the suicide, the captains says he does not know, but that "The sun was too much for him, or the country perhaps."

Answer: Marksmanship

Several individuals approach Marlow after Kurtz' death, seeking to claim the photos and memoirs that he had given to Marlow. The journalist feels that it was Kurtz' penchant for getting himself to believe anything that would make him a good journalist. Several company members identify Kurtz as a great speaker, admired by all listeners, including natives. Marlow mentions several times that Kurtz was such an abstraction that he was indeed no more than a voice to him sometimes.

Answer: True

It is only through the horn of the steamer that the natives retreat and Marlow advance toward Kurtz. The Russian "harlequin" tells Marlow that Kurtz was behind the ambush. He didn't want Marlow to come "peddling his notions" and undermining his "methods." As such, he thought the natives would either kill him and his crew or scare him away.

Answer: Starvation

He recounts the uncharacteristic restraint that the cannibals aboard the ship exhibited by picking on rotten hippo meat and bread instead of resorting to cannibalism. "Prolonged hunger," Marlow says, is the most maddening experience a human can endure.

Answer: The mad helmsman of his ship

The strangely clothed helmsman is described as having an athletic build and steering wildly only when he was aware Marlow was watching. When the natives attack, his reputation as an impulsive fool precedes him, as he fires his Martini-Henry wildly into the bushes, shaking it, and only steering in intervals and, even then, toward the brush.

Answer: Scaring away the natives when they were battling the pilgrims

When he departs from that stretch of the river that Kurtz was occupying the natives attack a second time at dawn. As they attack the pilgrims who are on deck, Marlow blows the steamer's horn to frighten the natives before sailing away. Even though they are not the ones considered "savage", the pilgrims wanted to stay for the sake of killing more natives.

Answer: At Marlow's feet

When he is struck by a makeshift arrow, he falls at Marlow's feet, getting his shoes bloody. Marlow is disgusted, more than anything else, at the fact that he has to throw his shoes overboard.