The racism can be clearly seen in the way the author addresses the natives: “brutes”, “black savages”, “niggers” or “they”. The readers can also notice the disgust towards the helmsman when the native was killed and his blood poured into Marlow’s shoes: “To tell you the truth, I was morbidly anxious to change my shoes and socks”. This episode demonstrates that the narrator did not actually respect the helmsman and he did not treat him as his “partner”. Racism can also be seen when Marlow compares the perfect image of the bookkeeper with the “black figures”, who looked more like shadows than people due to exhaustion and starvation: “Moreover I respected the fellow. Yes. I respected his collars, his vast cuffs, his brushed hair. His appearance was certainly a great demoralization of the land he kept up his appearance”. However, the book keeper did not think about the natives who were suffering and dying right next to him. By admiring such a person, Marlow supports this ignorance and racism towards the natives.

That concept of the “white” man supremacy is at the core of such a way of world perception.

Readers can notice how Marlow describes his relationships with the helmsman - he did not treat him as a slave but the narrator found a friend in that man and the loss of his companion deeply affected Marlow: “I missed my late helmsman awfully… For months I had him at my back--a help--an instrument. It was a kind of partnership. He steered for me--I had to look after him, I worried about his deficiencies, and thus a subtle bond had been created, of which I only became aware when it was suddenly broken. And the intimate profundity of that look he gave me when he received his hurt remains to this day in my memory--like a claim of distant kinship affirmed in a supreme moment”. Marlow did not want the body of the helmsman to be eaten due to starvation, so he made a decision to tip the body overboard: “I had made up my mind that if my late helmsman was to be eaten, the fishes alone should have him”.