In this extract from "Heart of Darkness," various forms of language are used to build tension and create an apprehensive environment in which the action will occur. This is done through stylistic devices, such as contrasts, personifications and references to the real world. This passage is greatly significant as it grasps all of the important historical aspects of the colonization, but presents them in a way, which allows the reader to almost participate in the story. This extract explores the wilderness encountered in the Congo; the river is described as running "smoothly and swiftly , this alliteration of the "s" sound makes the reader connect it with a snake, a deceiving and untrustworthy creature that, like the river, also slithers through the jungle floor. Conrad also uses sensory description to present the reader with a complete understanding of that moment in time. The fact that Marlow suspected himself of "being deaf  while in the jungle shows that the jungle was unnaturally quiet and disorientating, making it extremely difficult to navigate through it without questioning your senses. The description of the trees "lashing  together evoke a sentiment of pain and entrapment, suggesting that the jungle was not something inviting, instead, it was almost as if it was warning you to stay outside its walls, otherwise you will become trapped and lost, a sense of eternal purgatory. Conrad also describes the forest in terms of silence and sound, the comparison used to describe the large fish that leaped to a "gun being fired  reveals the colonizers' need to make connections between natural sounds, to man made ones, in order to find comfort while traveling through the vast jungle. It can also be interpreted in the way that they are so used to the sounds of violence within the camps, that when they leave to a more remote area, they can still hear the horror in the most natural of things, like a fish jumping out of the water. Thi