Heart of Darkness: Marxist Lens

In Heart of Darkness Marxism seems to be a recurring theme.  When Marlow describes the mad he comes across in the town office we are presented with the idea that there are different types of classes.  Conrad uses different colors on the map to represent the different levels of society.  "I was going into the yellow.  Dead in the centre. And the river was there-fascinating-deadly-like a snake." (Conrad, Pg. 74)  The map is covered with different colors representing the different imperial powers that make up Africa.  The yellow one that he points out is described as being in the center and covers some of the most mysterious attributes that Africa has.  The river is described as a snake which is closely related to being evil and even describes it as "deadly".  The yellow portion covers a vast amount of land, however, and more land tends to mean more power.  As well as having land it also has the river which flows through it which is a very important resource.  The color yellow is also close to the color gold, meaning wealth or riches.  Yellow is a color of power and because of this being the portion of the map covering the most land and having resources it is considered to be powerful.  While this is a very subtle way of dividing out the power, the author is claiming that not everyone has the same amount of power in the story.  Some part of Africa have more power than others and he uses colors to symbolize the different power that each portion has.