Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad criticizes the cause of the expeditions and its effects even on the land they travel through. Kurtz's expedition accounts show ironic details of patriotic intentions to create goodness and prosperity in a country, but leave it in disaster and chaos. However, in Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Kurtz uses cluster imagery to describe the river and its services in numerous expeditions, yet masking the truth of death as effects of the water's enactment of change and the ship's patriotic duty through the changes in the atmosphere, alluding to ships and their expeditions, and the anarchic depiction of travelers and their reasons for travelling. The changes in the atmosphere from tranquility to tumult and chaos, create this discomfort and a striking opposite in the details of the river. Kurtz shows this atmospheric change when he says, “…in its curved and imperceptible fall, the sun set, and from brilliant white it turned to a dull red without rays and heat” (Conrad 104). The image of the sun setting creates this ideal feeling of calm and tranquility, yet he juxtaposes this by saying, “…to go out suddenly, struck dead by the touch of that darkness which hangs over a crowd of men.” (104). Kurtz changes the atmosphere and makes the reader feel eerie, terrible, and fear-struck. That said, the atmospheric shift in this line critiques the reasons for these nationalistic river expeditions by anticipating death and destruction during these expeditions through allusion to ships and the motif of sailing. Furthermore, Kurtz alludes to the ships and their expeditions as a way to foreshadow the truth of their nationalistic duty in the Congo. Kurtz tells the reader that the river service was only... middle of the paper... numerous expeditions, covering the truth of death as effects through the performance of change on the water and the ship's patriotism through atmospheric changes, suggestions of the ships and their historical context, and the anarchic representation of the travelers and their reasons for the journey. The depiction of life and death is seen in the turns as a way to suggest that Marlowe's expedition is not for the betterment of the Congo. Works Cited Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness and Other Stories. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Print."Franklin, Sir John - The Canadian Encyclopedia." The Canadian Encyclopedia. Np, nd Web. 20 October 2011. "Sir Francis Drake." ThinkQuest. Np, nd Web. October 20. 2011. .