Excerpt adapted from Heart of Darkness
by Joseph Conrad

Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. An empty stream, a great silence, a dense forest. The air was warm, thick, heavy, sluggish. There was no joy in the brilliance of sunshine. The long stretches of the waterway ran on, deserted, into the gloom of overshadowed distances. On silvery sand-banks hippos and alligators sunned themselves side by side. The broadening waters flowed through a mob of wooded islands; you lost your way on that river as you would in a desert, and butted all day long against sand banks, trying to find the channel, till you thought yourself bewitched and cut off for ever from everything you had known once—somewhere—far away—in another existence perhaps.

Select the correct answer.

Read the excerpt from Heart of Darkness.

What is the most likely purpose of this part of the story?

A.
to describe the character’s conflict with the setting
B.
to create a subplot that introduces a minor detail
C.
to conclude the events that resulted in a turning point
D.
to introduce a new decision that will need to be made