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Conrad’s novel, Heart of Darkness, is a complex narrative that challenges the reader on several levels. On one level, this book can be read as a story about Charlie Marlow’s (the novel’s protagonist) journey to discover his inner self, or as a commentary on human identity in general. To become fully aware individuals, our identity must be open to all forms of alteration, even if this deviates from our social conditioning. The journey that Marlow embarks upon after he was ‘charmed by the snake’ is psychological as well as physical. On his voyage up the Congo River, Marlow is confronted with culture clash, wilderness, disease, insanity and death and returns to Europe a changed man. Marlow himself considers this experience as a kind of enlightenment: “It was the farthest point of navigation and the culminating point of my experience. It seemed somehow to throw a kind of light on everything about me – and into my thoughts. It was sombre enough, too – and pitiful – not extraordinary in any way – not very clear either. No, not very clear. And yet it seemed to throw a kind of light.” (p 11) This paper will try to analyze Marlow’s change, as caused by his exposure to a radically different culture, untamed nature