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Vladimir Propp is a Russian writer who worked on the written narratives of Russian folk-lore. He came to have identified certain types of characters which present themselves in all pieces of literature. Of the many types he describes two of the most important as being the hero and the villain. He describes the hero as being the one “who is seeking something” and the villain as the one “who is in opposition of the hero.” According to these definitions one may be able to classify characters of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness into a category. Though there is much room for interpretation in accordance to Propp’s characters, Charlie Marlow would fit under the category of the hero as he is seeking to find Kurtz. The company could also be seen as the hero as they are also seeking Kurtz through Marlow. To classify a villain in this novel though becomes hard. Marlow does indeed face many oppositions, but they seem to be by many different people, the landscape of Africa, and an inner turmoil. Though if one is to look closely at the actions of Kurtz they would see that he proves to accurately fit the description of the villain as he opposes Marlow and the company many times. First Kurtz proves to conform to this character as he defies the rules that are set in place by taking advantage of the Africans to harvest his ivory, Kurtz then opposes rescue by ordering the natives to attack Marlow and his steamboat on their way up the river, and lastly Kurtz proves to give the hero difficulty when he flees the boat after being rescued to return to his camp. When looking at these examples Kurtz looks to become moulded around Propp’s characterization of a villain. In the novel Heart of Darkness the main character Charlie Marlow can be classified as the hero character as he is sent to “seek” Kurtz and rescue him. Looking at a broader scale one could also observe